If you didn't know, I have taken up a new hobby. It is being a Black Smith. I enjoy it so much, I get to play with fire and metal, with sweat and strength as I mold metal into what ever I desire. I have had fun learning about how it all works and make useful tools and knives, on rare occasion something decorative. As I have learned and worked, I have seen a few similarities in the Christian life and working with the Metal. Just as the parable is about the potter and the clay.....I see God as the Black Smith and us as the metal. The first part of smiting that you need to know is how to pick the metal for the purpose. They all contain carbon and it is boned with different elements to make a metal. Just like Metal we are all made in the image of God and bonded with different abilities and skills to allow us to do different things. In case you didn't know not all metal will work for the same purposes. For example Aluminum has a lower melting point and is very good for casting, but iron has a much higher melting point and works better for making tools. Just like that we are different and gifted in different ways which makes us better for one job or another. The second step is to proceed with the plan that you have for the metal. It takes a bed of coals, very hot coals. You know the things we know as trials and test. Only when the metal is hot enough can it begin to be molded. Then comes the action...the hammer and the anvil. As the metal starts to be molded a scale starts to fall of these are the impurities in the metal. A Black Smith must constantly clean to get the scale off. After a time the metal become cold again and must be heated again and again as it is being molded. Sometimes it takes hundreds of hours to get something to perfectly fit its purpose. The metal may be punched ( make a hole in it), bent, and usually cut off....the metal that does not fit the purpose. Once the metal is in the basic shape that is desired it is then quenched in oil or water. It helps to harden that shape. Maybe even used for one purpose at that time, then reheated and made into something else entirely. I have felt like that so many times in life.....one purpose at one point in time, then being molded into something different for a different task. After the Smith is satisfied with the tool, he may choose to temper the metal. It is a process of throwing it back into the fire until it glows yellow. At that point he lets it air cool in order to let the carbon realign its self, this makes the metal much harder and more resistant to breaking or changing. Now to a different option that a Black Smith has making Damascus Steel. Sounds cool and it is. It is a process that I see much like the church. It was started to save money by combining more expensive and cheaper metals to save money. The end product was much better than expected. The metals were layered and forge welded together to make one piece of metal. Metals like Nickel and iron just as an example. The process made some of the sharpest swords they had ever seen. It is because it combined the properties of both hard and soft metals. Scientifically it made more microscopic saw blades and thus more efficiently cuts.
Here in my new favorite Black Smith quote "I'm a Wordsmith, it's kinda like a BlackSmith just without the fire and Anvil and stuff."
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