Tools

Life is all about tools. If you have the right tools you can do about anything. Without them it would be hard to do the simplest task. For the sake of this blog I will define the word tool as copied and pasted from dictionary.com

Tool-

*anything used as a means of accomplishing a task or purpose: Education is a tool for success.

*any instrument of manual operation.

Its easy to change a tire if you have the right tools, and nearly impossible without them.

The other month I stopped to help a guy change his tire. I was driving by and saw that he had everything strung out on the road like his trunk was hit by a bomb. I pulled over to see if I could be of assistance. The guy had a hub cap that required a specialty tool that was provided in the spare tire compartment to remove the hub cap in case of an emergency. Unfortunately the tool was made of cheap plastic and just bent completely out of shape when any pressure was applied. He was an electrician and had his whole tool chest in his car. We used other tools to try to get it off but without taking a hammer and busting everything to bits we could not remove the hub cap. It required the specific tool. We did end up busting it to bits to get to the lug nuts.

Why plastic? It’s cheap. Metal is much more expensive because it takes more time, more material to develop, and is more rare. Sometimes you want a tool to be softer (for example if you don’t want the tool to scratch a high precision part) but most tools require the hardest possible material available. I find it interesting that with steel, the way to soften it is by heating it up to a certain temperature. Guess how you harden it? Yes that’s correct… Heat! To harden or soften steel you heat it up. What makes the difference is how it is cooled and how many times you heat it up.

If you want to make it extremely hard you cool it slow. One way to slow the cooling is to pack it in salt. It should take two days for the steel to cool. Then you heat it back up and do it again and sometimes a third or forth time….

To soften it you just cool it fast.

I have found that I am like this process. There are parts of me that I/the Lord is trying to soften and there are parts of me that need to be strengthened (when I say parts I am talking about character traits and virtues… individually). It is by experience and trials that we are “heated” up. The Lord knows what we need and if we will but yoke ourselves with Christ He will strengthen us where we need to be strengthened and softened where we need to be softened. He is in control and He will use us as he sees fit to make us better than we can make ourselves.

Trials and experiences also allow us the opportunity to develop different types of tools. Just as we needed a specific tool for the tire we also need specific character traits/virtues for different trials and circumstances. As we grow our tool box of virtues and develop character or obtain “tools” we will find ourselves being more valuable to the Lord and find greater happiness in our lives. We will gain a greater ability to serve, work, feel, laugh, cry, and love.