Life Between the Anvil & the Hammer

In life their are times you are the Anvil, and times you are the hammer.  Then there are those moments when you are the piece of metal in the middle being pounded.  Life can sometimes not just be unfair, but down right mean.  You can sometimes become trapped between the place we find our selves in (be that physically or spiritually) and the pounding of life's circumstances.

 

When you are in this place it is not a gentle tap, tap, tap.  It is a brutal and seemingly insurmountable barrage.  Going from the fire when your 'metal' is tested and tempered to then placed on the anvil and struck with a hammer that sends sparks in every direction.  This moulding of our metal is not precise.  Not soft, but relentless and painful  Then back into the fire and more pounding.  Until finally you either yield to the process and become what the smith wants or we become scrap metal and thrown into the scrap pile to be melted down and used again.

 

There are time in life when this happens to us and it can seem as if the Lord himself has taken a holiday and left you to circumstances of life.  No matter what you do nothing seems to make a dent.

 

Job probably felt like this as well.  Having everything taken from you and left barely living. He struggled with his own thoughts as well.  The mental anguish of having to balance the pain of his present circumstances with the concept of a "Loving God".  Why did God let this happen?  Why didn't he do something?  Aren't we His children?

 

Hopefully the people who know of our situation have the grace to just walk with us through it instead of trying to 'fix' our attitude and get us to just........ (fill in the blank).  Many of us just do not know what to say and those that do say something usually try and change our minds about God.  Even though at that moment in time we could care less what our attitude is.  We just want the pain to stop.

 

This is also when those very special verses in the Bible about trust and faith are spoken to us. "Trust the Lord." "He knows what he is doing." "Blah blah blah." These words assault us and only serve to increase our pain.

 

In the end you have to silence your own doubts, and re-engage with God.  His Holy Spirit gently and lovingly works in His own time.

 

One of my favourite verses can be found in Lamentations.

 

19 I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. 
20 I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. 
21 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 
22 Because of the LORD 's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 
23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 
24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

Lamentations 3: 19 - 24

 

 

It is not a case that I will honour God because He is good or delight in Him for all He has done. Sometimes we praise Him because He is all we have.  Just to honour Him because He is their.  Our circumstance may not presently manifest evidence of His love but this does not mean He has forsaken us.

 

15 Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;

Job 13:15

 

 

This is not something someone can tell you.  It has to be something you say for yourself.  It is at this point that we move from trusting God because He has been good to us to trusting Him because He is God. It may seem He is far off, but even so I will trust Him.  Life may be pressing in all around but we are still able to just stand.

 

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this

all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 
8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 
9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

2 Corinthians 4: 7 - 9

 

 

There is no guilt in having moments when God is not on our top ten list.  All of us have moments when we have had enough and feel like packing it all in. I know, I have been there. I am there.

 

So today as an act of my will, and with what little faith I have I say that He is my God and I will trust in Him.  Though my circumstances and my mind tell me otherwise I CHOOSE to deny what I see, and instead lay what little I have at the feet of a merciful God.

 

 

7 We live by faith, not by sight.

2 Corinthians 5:7



 

Shalom

 

Dave Mc