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'God remolds us into a shape that is hollow
and deep.
MICHAEL HUGGINS |
. .. . 'Some people ... have never allowed God to melt them down.' . . . .
.''A
bell that is not pulled . . . .
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Michael
Huggins' . . . . . . . .
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© 1996 Michael Huggins Hundreds of years before the microphone and the amplifier, there was an instrument that could be heard for miles. When people still lived in thatched roof huts and fought with swords and battle axes, they listened for a sound that woke them in the early morning dark, called them to prayers, sounded the alarm when their city was attacked, rang out joyfully when they were married, and tolled mournfully when they were carried to the graveyard. It was the bell. We don't think much about bells in an age of synthesizers and digitized sound. They seem too simple, almost primitive. If we actually find a church with a bell, we wonder if it works. A bell almost seems like too much trouble. It's too heavy, too hard to work, too loud, and it can crack. But what a bell is and the way it works is a lesson in how God works. A Christian who lets God take his or her life and change it is like a bell. God takes us when we are like a misshapen lump of metal, not much good for anything. He melts us down. He casts the metal to a strength and thickness that is hard enough to withstand the stress, but flexible enough to sound the tones He wants to strike. A bell cannot be made of stone. Neither can it be made of tin. God remolds us into a shape that is hollow and deep. The hollowness contains the sound; the depth amplifies it. He takes us from our surroundings and hangs us up, very high. There is no such thing as a bell mounted in a swamp or a ditch. Just as His Son was lifted up on a cross, we are set up to stand or fall in the sight of the whole world. We are no longer free to remain where we were. Nor do we move under our own power. His hand pulls the rope, when He pleases, not when we please. And this is the most important part, because when He pulls, the clapper strikes, and that is the only reason we sound at all. A bell that is not pulled and not struck may be a wonder of symmetry, and it may gleam in the sunlight, but it will never do what a bell was intended to do; it will never make any music. Some people are still existing as lumps of metal; they have never allowed God to melt them down. And some, even after they have taken that first step, feel that they have done quite enough. They are formed into a bell, but they wish it didn't involve being separated from the places they used to go and being hung up in public, where everybody is watching and listening. Some are disappointed that they didn't get formed into one of the large, deep bells, while others, who were made to sound the deep notes, are quite sure that the smaller, chiming bells are useless and they wish someone would take them down. Some don't like for the rope to be pulled and will not yield to the rhythm of the bell ringer; they balk until the ropes are frayed with the effort it takes to make them move. And some could take all that, if only they didn't have to put up with the clapper. They didn't mind the idea of being turned into a beautiful artifact, and even the public attention isn't so bad, and as to being pulled by the ropes, well, you can get used to anything. But being struck! Why didn't someone tell them how irritating it would be? When is it going to stop? If the bell ringer is so clever, why can't He figure out a way to make music with just a slight, ever-so-gentle tap? If we are going to be what God intended, we have to let ourselves be melted down, reshaped, hollowed out, hung up before the world, and moved only at His direction. And we have to make music when we are struck. © Michael Huggins 1996 |
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