FINE-TUNING, PART 2

A few weeks ago I did a post on fine-tuning using Hebrews 12:1 as the basis of the teaching. Most of the focus in the earlier teaching was on taking some things off and putting others on so that we run the race with the best possible level of effectiveness.

I have been reminded over and over in my spirit that fine-tuning our lives is not a one-time event but a lifetime process. My first car was a 1949 Ford Coupe with a big V-8 engine. When I got my Ford in 1961, gas cost about 20 cents a gallon. The carburetors on those cars could be adjusted by hand and this was pre-electronic ignition system, so we would spend hours playing with the adjustment on the carburetors trying to get the engine to run a little better.

This is very much like the fine-tuning process of our devotional lives. Your devotional life, as I have written before, is what defines your life with God. Going to church, singing in the choir, paying your tithes, doing volunteer work, even witnessing is all anecdotal information. It is all interesting but it does not define who you are in your walk with God. How you live out your personal life with Him is defined by how you carry out your personal communication with Him, i.e. your devotional life.

Jesus says, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). Jesus is talking to fishermen, Peter and his brother Andrew, as He called them into His service. Jesus is speaking of the part He would play in assisting them to develop their potential as His followers. The word “make” is very rich and is loaded with meaning. It is the word that describes an author as he takes disconnected words and begins to work with them again and again until he completes a masterpiece of a story. It is the picture of a master craftsman who takes a pile of rough wood and works with it over and over until he has the beautiful piece of furniture that he had pictured in his mind.

I believe the Lord has three pictures of each of us in His view. The first is of us before our conversion. The second picture is of us as we are now, and the third is of us as we can become. It is the third picture that becomes His ideal as He works with us. The process of “making” is a cooperative work. He does not overwhelm our will; He certainly could but He doesn’t. Sometimes, of the three pictures before the Lord, the “then” picture and the “now” picture are virtually the same because of reluctance on our part to cooperate with Him.

The heart of every piano is the soundboard, the part that enables the piano “to speak” with rich and full tones. It is the soundboard that gives the piano its personality, its quality. A good soundboard cannot be made in a few minutes or even a few hours. For some concert pianos, the time needed to build a soundboard can be a year or longer.

The soundboard is made of separate pieces of wood that are carefully selected and glued together. After the gluing, the soundboard is allowed to dry and “season.” All along, the process is carefully monitored so that the moisture content of the wood that is to become the tonal heart of the piano is just right.

After the wood of the soundboard has dried and is seasoned just right, it has to be stretched. This stretching is what brings out the rich tones and quality. Stretching is achieved by bending or “crowning” the soundboard. Stretching is a result of pressure being carefully and consistently applied. If the wood is too dry, it will break and crack; too wet, and the wood fibers won’t have the necessary quality

When the soundboard is crafted properly, you have the possibility of a Steinway or a Yamaha. If it is done wrong…well, you get the picture.

Our Lord, His Father and the Holy Spirit are “master craftsmen” who are working with the third picture of you in view. It is the meticulous attention of the Master Craftsmen that brings His work of art to as near to perfection as He can get it and that is the Lord’s goal for each of us. He will mold us, He will stretch us so that we are brought to the place of maturity, and then our lives will “speak” with the richness and fullness of God.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).