Wednesday, February 16, 2005

When God wants to drill a man ...

This poem is encouraging, even though it's honest about pain. As Joni says before she quotes it, "Believing in the Sculptor is living hope."

When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man and skill a man,
When God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part,
When He yearns with all His heart to create so great and bold a man
That all the world should be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways,
How He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects;
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him into shapes and forms of clay
Which only God can understand,
While man's tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands;
Yet God bends but never breaks when man's good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And with mighty power infuses him,
With every act induces him to try His splendor out,
God knows what He's about.

- Author Unknown. Quoted in When God Weeps, by Joni Eareckson Tada and Steve Estes

2 comments:

Pilgrim in Progress said...

Wow. I really like that. Spoken by someone who has experienced great pain and anguish from the hand of God, and yet still sees God as lover, Father, and friend.

Thanks for sharing that.

Anonymous said...

Once, I was a lost hurting girl who was filled with hate and the crippling anguish of guilt. Someone handed me this book by Joni and my eyes welled up with tears over and over again. I broke and the Lord breathed life into my dry bones. I have since used When God Weeps to minister to others.

What a great poem.