When the axe is blunt

I remember growing up in a small country town when I was in primary school. Among the chores we shared as kids, each afternoon my brother and I would take it in turns to split firewood for the hot water system and wood-fired oven. Toward the end of each week, the axe would become blunt and it seemed that we would have to swing as hard as we could to chop through the timber. Dad would often come home from work and remind us that we wouldn’t have to swing as hard if we took the time to stop and sharpen the axe with the grinder!

A Scripture came to mind recently, when I remembered this experience after watching some kids doing a problem solving exercise. They kept trying the same technique and strategy over and over again without getting any results. The Bible says that if the axe is blunt and someone doesn’t sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength; but wisdom will bring success. Ecc 10:10. Did you know that an axe was also used as a weapon in warfare during the time when the Bible was written? This helps us to better understand what the apostle Paul meant when he told us to present ourselves to God as being alive from the dead and as an instrument or weapon of righteousness. Rom 6:12-13.

The Bible is clear that we are to keep ‘sharp’, both spiritually and physically. In this way, we become useful tools or weapons of righteousness for God’s kingdom and can withstand the persuasions of the wicked one. The book of Proverbs tells us how to keep ‘sharp’. It says, ‘As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another’. Prov 27:17. It is very comforting to know that we can receive God’s word from brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers in the church to help grind away the attitudes, behaviours and other things in our lives which are not of God, but of this world. So the Bible says, ‘Stripes that wound scour away evil’ and ‘faithful are the wounds of a friend’. Prov 20:30, Prov 27:6.

The writer of the book of Hebrews explained that, ‘no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it’. Heb 12:11. The Scriptures tell us that ‘those whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives’. Heb 12:6. We must learn to be like a wise person who will receive words of correction and instruction from others. In this way, we are continually being ‘sharpened’ by one another. Could we challenge ourselves to receive the adjustments of life? Or will we become like the foolish person who resists correction and continues to stumble ‘swinging harder and harder’ to get the same old results?

Shem Barnes

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Feature Articles
March 2010

First Place

In and out

Facing our fears

First love

Fronting up!

Are you the one?

Seek Him first

The first and the best

When the axe is blunt

Come home

Familiarity breeds contempt