I love to redeem old hand tools from antique stores. I hate to see an old hand tool languishing on a shelf.
In my wood shop, one of my favorite tools to use is the hand plane. To be precise, my very favorite is an old Stanley No. 4 smooth bench plane with a Lie Nielsen plane iron in it. There is something tremendously satisfying in seeing the shavings roll off the chip breaker and watching as the surface of the wood begins to shimmer under an old plane.
Part of the appeal is that hand work of this sort is becoming a lost art. There is pleasure in knowing that you took an old rusty relic, cleaned it, tuned it, sharpened it and brought it back to perfect working order. There is also an art to using a hand plane that takes time, patience a certain amount of 'feel' to get correct. Even the sharpest, best prepared tool will be of no use until it is placed in the hands of an experienced carpenter. And there is nothing that prepares a surface like hand planing done well.
I have been thinking about this in relationship to how I want to be used of God. God takes us, cleans up the rust spots, trues our souls, sharpens our irons and puts us to work under His hand. Though He has prepared us to do the work for which He intends, it is His expert use of our restored lives that brings the result. Though we may be finely honed, without the Master's expert hand, we can do nothing good. Once He grips us firmly, and begins to make passes at the world with us, we will realize that no matter how wonderfully prepared we may be, without him we are merely a hunk of iron and steel and wood. In using us, He makes the fine adjustments and applies just the right pressure to get the results that He is looking for.
Hand tools need frequent attention to stay usable. If I set aside my hand planes for any length of time, or fail to sharpen them or tune them up, I will find that they become rusty and unusable. So it is with us. We must frequently be sharpened and honed and tuned and adjusted to continue to be useful to God. When a hand plane needs sharpening or adjustment, someone familiar with the tool will be able to tell by the result that he gets by using it. If it isn't taking long, fine shavings with each pass, the carpenter will know that something is wrong. He will stop his work and attend to the tool before he continues. We must remain sharp and true for God to use us.
Another secret to hand planing is understanding the material to which you apply the tool. each board will generally plane wonderfully in one direction, but often if you run the plane in the other direction you will get chatter and the iron will pick at the grain. The Lord is the expert who knows which material we are best suited to work. If we sense any chattering, of the surface is being marred by our work, we may easily guess that we are not under the hand of the master carpenter.
I desire to be truly used of God. I know that He has already prepared me for use by His great salvation. I am clean. I am sharp. I am tuned for use. Now I need to allow my Master to take me and use me as he intends and as he knows best. I want Him to have the pleasure and the glory as He watches the silky smooth curls rise from my work. After all, He is the one who redeemed me from my languished state and He is the one who best knows how to use me!
