In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built (1 Kings 6:7 NIV).
God does the shaping work on your life early. He does not wait for the time for actual building up of your life to shape you. This is the reason why you seem to be laid aside while you badly want to go ahead.
But it is not actually a laying aside that is happening; but it is the preparation work. This is the time when God uses the hammer and chisel and other tools on you. You are being dressed at the quarry now.
This preparation implies that God has a design in mind for your life. It is part of His master plan for His kingdom. So He knows where you are going to fit in. In this shaping phase of life, He prepares you with the overall plan of His kingdom in mind.
If you can find any comfort during the painful preparatory stage; then find comfort in the thought that you do not exist for yourself alone in God’s kingdom. Instead you are built together into a spiritual house with others as living stones (1 Peter 2:5).
Therefore the rough edges have to go; and instead shape and beauty and order comes to make you fit into that Grand Design of God.
But more than all this your thoughts should lift up to heaven. There everything is perfect. No more work is to be done there. All work and preparation has been assigned to take place on earth. And there is no second chance.
Therefore if you shall cooperate with the Master Builder who has the best intentions for you in mind; you can lay your foundation with gold and silver and costly stones (1 Corinthians 3:12) for the life to come.
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