Life's Daily Challenge Devotional

Alone in the quarry

"And the king commanded them to quarry large stones, costly stones, and hewn stones, to lay the foundation of the temple," 1Kings 5:17.

"And the temple, when it was being built, was built with the stone finished at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built," 1Kings 6:7.

"Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God though Jesus Christ," 1Peter 1:4-5.

Dear living stone,

God's house was so holy that no human instrument could be heard hammering or chiseling as the pieces were being assembled together. Each stone was chiseled individually in the quarry. The quarry is the pit from which the stone was dug. Isaiah 51:1-2 says, "...Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; For I called him alone, and blessed him and increased him."

Abraham is the father of faith. We are called to live our lives by faith. Often Abraham felt alone. Often so do you. Faith, by definition requires exercise. To increase it must be stretched and challenged. Every stone needs to fit exactly with other stones in the master design. Each one is being hand-tooled to exact specifications. Each blow of the hammer or chisel is precise and intentional. Their purpose is to give the stone purpose.

Have you ever felt as if you were alone in the quarry? Have you ever had a hard time making sense of the loneliness and the striking blows that you have endured in life? The difference between the building material of the old and the new temple is that we are "living stones." Living stones have free will. They can resist and run away from the tooling of the master. They can make conscious decisions that life is too lonely and too painful to trust in the plans of the Creator.

For those of us who "look to Abraham" and follow in his footsteps, there is reward. The hammering and chiseling are hard, but it is not forever. It has a purpose. In a short time our chiseled lives which seem so incomplete can be fit with those of others to form a beautiful living, breathing house for God to inhabit.

Don't lose heart. Don't resist the tooling of the Master. "... Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator," 1Peter 4:19.