New Sharp Teeth!

For about 11 years of my adult life I worked as a mechanical insulator out of the Local 5 Union among several shops in the San Diego zone.  Most of that time I performed commercial work which involved materials like fiberglass pipe covering, duct wrap, tape, and rubber.  For all of these jobs a knife is necessary.  In my shoulder box I still have many different knives for specific applications.  The knives I used most often were serrated knives.  Early in my apprenticeship I learned to use a double-cut flat bastard file to grind teeth into high-carbon "Old Hickory" 6 and 8-inch knives.

When I first began sharpening knives, I was taught by a journeyman how to use a stone or file to smoothly hone the blade of a knife.  But I found that it wasn't long before I would have to sharpen the knife again.  Fiberglass quickly dulls a sharp blade.  It was my brother (an apprentice at the same time as me) who showed me how to put teeth into a knife using a file.  After mastering the technique, I found those teeth made a huge difference!  Instead of sharpening my knifes several times a day, I only needed to file them once every couple of months!

Last night I was reading Isaiah and stumbled onto a noteworthy gem.  Isaiah 41:15 reads, "Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and make the hills like chaff."  A threshing sledge is an instrument some used to separate the grain from the chaff.  This sledge would be weighted and dragged across the grain.  Sharp stones were affixed to the bottom of the sledge so it would effectively thresh the grain.  The picture reminds me of when I used a floor machine to refinish the hardwood floors at my previous house.  I nailed a 4-grit sanding pad to the machine, put a bag of cement on top to weigh it down, and sanded away.  What a difference that new pad made on that old wooden floor!

This is the point:  it is God who makes a Christian effective in his labour for God's glory.  No matter what our role - whether we are a plow, a sickle, or a threshing sledge, it is God who puts a sharp edge on us.  He is the one who makes us new.  A knife can't sharpen itself, and we are unable to do any work for God unless He empowers and equips us to do the work.  God often uses the circumstances and people in our lives to perform this sharpening work, as it is written in Proverbs 27:17:  "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend."  Sharpening is impossible without the removal of metal.  A file or stone must scrape off the steel to bring it to a sharp point.  A diamond is most valuable after it has been cut.  It is so with us:  we must be cut, filed, and sharpened to the Master's specifications to make us a valuable tool fit for His use.  I wonder:  what part of me or you does God need to grind away to rid us of our dullness?  It isn't an easy process, but it's worth it!