The Scrap Heap

There once was a blacksmith who gave his heart to God. Through conscientious in his living, still he was not prospering materially. It seems from the time of his conversion more trouble, affliction and loss were sustained than ever before. Everything seemed to be going wrong.

Once day a friend, who was not a Christian, stopped at the little garage to talk to him. Sympathizing with him in some of his trials, the friend said, "It seems strange to me that so many afflictions should pass over you, just at the time when you have become an earnest Christian. Of course, I don't want to weaken you faith in God or anything like that, but here you are with God's help and guidance, and yet things seem to be steadily getting worse. I can't help wondering why that is?"

The blacksmith did not answer immediately, and it was evident that he had thought of the same question before, but finally he said, "You see the raw iron which I have here to make into horseshoes? Do you know what I do with it? I take a piece and heat it in the fire until it is red, almost white with heat, then I hammer it unmercifully to shape it as I know it should be shaped. Then I plunge it into a small pail of cold water to temper it. Then I heat it and hammer it some more, and I do this until it is finished.

"But sometimes I find a piece of iron that won't stand up under this treatment. The heat and the hammering and the cold water are too much for it. I don't know why it fails in the process, but I know it will ever make a good horseshoe."

He pointed to the heap of scrap iron that was near the door of his shop. "When I get a piece that cannot take the shape of temper, I throw it out on a scrap heap. It will never be good for anything." He went on, "I know that God has been holding me in the fires of affliction and I have felt His hammer upon me, but I don't mind, if only he can bring me to be what I should be. And so in all these things, my prayer is simply this: 'Try me in any way you wish, Lord, but don't throw me in the scrap heap.'"

Lynell Waterman

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