Malleable
15 Nov
This is one of those words I have read time and time again and pretended to know what it meant. Malleable. I looked it up about a week ago and have been thinking about it since.
Malleable means “able to be hammered or pressed permanently out of shape without breaking or cracking.”
In January I sat around a table with other Christian Ed seniors from Taylor. Somehow the conversation turned to motivation and how “God got a hold of us”. Our professor highlighted the extremes (paraphrase): “For some people it like God just whispers in their ear, for others it is like God knocks them flat on their face.” When he said the last part, I involuntarily agreed aloud and my contemporaries noticed laughingly.
God is a good father and knows what we need much better than we do. At just the right time, He will move in our lives in innumerable ways. I hear God in whispers, but God also gets a hold of me driving me to my knees and face. Sometimes — sometimes often–it is like God needs to pound us out to shape us like a metalworker beautifies his art or makes a tool for a specific job. I often imagine my close friends watching what God is doing with/to/in/through me and cringing like parents who have to let their children go into surgery.
Malleable. Able to be pounded on without breaking or cracking. Sometimes I wonder just how hard and how long God needs to pound. I think that the next blow will break me.
“Just trust me,” He says. He works and works. It hurts. The work is all his. It’s like getting a root canal. When he is done, its often sore for a while, but its better. Again, its what you need/ed. When the hammer falls, it is our option to surrender and ask that His will be done. In surrender, we love and trust that His pounding is making us into what he wants and needs. His pounding will not break or crack us if we surrender to Him.
May the Lord’s will be done,
CWillZ
Tags: art, Arts, beauty, Christian Education, discipline, Faith, love, pain, purpose, reflect, stories, surrender, Taylor, the Kingdom
God will do whatever he needs to do to us to mold us to his image. He will break us, humiliate us, or whatever by exposing us to the fires of tribulation. Silver is refined by exposing it to heat. Our perfections are like dross.
He does humiliate his own to remove pride. That is a frustration from our viewpoint at the time, but from his, it is a mercy. God is just and good at the same time. His justice can be seen in how he deals with sin and pride.
CWillz-
Thanks for the comments. Right now at FLCF they don’t have an official Student Pastor replacement. My brother-in-law happens to be of the staff pastors (and was my link to FLCF in the first place). Over the last three months he has stepped in and taken over the responsibilities I had. I saw you recently graduated (6 months?) from Taylor University. Are you looking to relocate? Are you already in student ministry now?
Sorry for the overload of questions. I’m going to link to your blog. Have a great weekend
Being malleable hurts – even if you are flexible. I’m working hard to be flexible and malleable enough for God to continue to mold me into the person he originally created me to be. It’s not easy, but is easily worthwhile.
I like what you are saying here.
Amen.