Do you sometimes wonder where you are on your own spiritual journey? It’s a question I often ask myself, which a friend helped me to answer a little better by sending me the following short parable of sorts. It’s a small excerpt taken from Max Lucado’s 1985 book titled On The Anvil.
“In the shop of a blacksmith, there are three types of tools.
There are tools on the junk pile: outdated, broken, dull, rusty. They sit in the cobwebbed corner, useless to their master, oblivious to their calling.
There are tools on the anvil: melted down, molten hot, moldable, changeable. They lie on the anvil, being shaped by their master, accepting their calling.
There are tools of usefulness: sharpened, primed, defined, mobile. They lie ready in the blacksmith’s tool chest, available to their master, fulfilling their calling.
Some people lie useless: lives broken, talents wasting, fires quenched, dreams dashed. They are tossed in with the scrap iron, in desperate need of repair, with no notion of purpose.
Others lie on the anvil: hearts open, hungry to change, wounds healing, vision clearing. They welcome the painful pounding of the blacksmith’s hammer, longing to be rebuilt, begging to be called.
Others lie in their Master’s hands: well tuned, non-compromising, polished, productive. They respond to their Master’s forearm, demanding nothing, surrendering all.
We are all somewhere in the blacksmith’s shop. We are either on the scrap pile, in the master’s hand, in the tool-chest – or being pounded and reshaped, on the anvil.”
I wish I could definitely say I was completely useful and in my Higher Power’s hands at the present time, in a state of being totally sharpened, primed, defined, and mobile. But I’m not, at least not yet that is. What I can unquestionably state though is that I’m not on some junk pile either where I’m nothing more than a tool that’s outdated, broken, dull or rusty. Those days are hopefully long gone, as back then my life was useless solely because I riddled it with so many addictions. It took a lot of pain, anguish and despair to pull me out of that discarded heap and place me on the anvil, and that’s where I believe I still remain now.
While being on the anvil may not be the most pleasant place to reside, I truly do look forward to becoming whatever tool of usefulness my Higher Power has been forging me into. In the meantime, my heart remains as open and hungry to change as can be and my old wounds and past transgressions continue to heal as well. Soon that veil which has been over my eyes for far too long will finally be fully lifted. And when it does, I know I’ll have become a very unique spiritual tool who’s ready to fully serve my Higher Power and who’s well tuned, non-compromising, polished and productive.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
I’m glad you enjoyed that passage, Andrew. It’s been a defining one for me for years.
I find that there are bits of “on the anvil” in almost every day for me – largely because I’m not the spiritual Goliath I would sometimes like to think I am. Generally, whatever character defects I exhibit at any given time get me abraded in some way – not always pounded, but ground down in some way, rubbing the rust off if you will.
And the thing I love about this image is that I’m not getting “beaten up by God” in the image of being punished, but being re-cast, re-formed, recreated. In terms of Christian scripture, it’s somewhere between Isaiah 43:19 (“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland”) and Revelation 21:5 (“I am making all things new!”).
That’s actually a good way of putting it, especially because so many people that I know in recovery struggle with God because of the punishing image of God they have. So thank you for the original inspiration.