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TESTED AND TRIED

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jun 28, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 26.

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TESTED AND TRIED.

A BLACKSMITH who, some eight years after he had given his heart to God, was approached by an intelligent unbeliever with the question: “Why is it that you have so much trouble? I have been watching. Since you joined the church and began to ‘walk square,’ and seem to love everybody, you have twice as many trials and accidents as you had before. I thought when a man gave himself to God, his troubles were over. Isn’t that what the parson tells us?”
With a thoughtful but glowing face the blacksmith replied:
“Do you see this piece of iron? It is for the springs of a carriage. I have been ‘tempering’ it for some time. To do this I heat it red hot and then plunge it in a tub of ice-cold water. This I do many times. If I find it is taking ‘temper,’ I beat it and hammer it unmercifully. In getting the right piece of iron, I found several that were too brittle to take ‘temper.’ They cracked the first blow I struck. So I threw them into the scrap-pile. Those scraps are worth about a cent a pound. This carriage spring is very valuable.”
He paused; his listener nodded. The blacksmith continued:
“God saves us for something more than to have a good time. That’s the way I see it. We have the good time all right, for God’s smile means heaven. But He wants us for service, just as I want that piece of iron. And He has to put the ‘temper’ of Christ in us by testing us with trials. Ever since I saw this truth, I have been saying to Him: ‘Test me in any way You choose, Lord, only don’t throw me into the scrap-pile.’” —Selected.