Fire Makes You Soft

"In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." — 1 Peter 1:6-7

Molecular Dislocation

In the shop, we love the fire. It is mesmerizing. It creates a spectacle. But scientifically, heat doesn't make steel strong; it makes it soft.

When you heat steel to critical temperature, the molecular structure relaxes. It becomes pliable. It yields to the hammer with almost no resistance. If you let it cool slowly from that state, it remains soft. It has no edge. It has no structural integrity. It is just a piece of metal that can be bent by hand.

The Shock

To lock in strength, you need the Quench.

You take that glowing, comfortable metal and plunge it into oil or water. It is a violent, sudden shock. The temperature drops instantly, forcing the carbon atoms to freeze into a rigid, crystalline structure.

The fire prepares the metal, but the shock is what hardens it. Without the quench, the blade is useless.

Don't Despise the Plunge

We often pray for the "fire" of revival. We want the emotional high and the spiritual glow. But we hate the shock. We hate the trials, the grief, and the sudden crises that hit us on a Tuesday morning.

1 Peter 1:6–7 describes trials as testing the genuineness of faith, which is more precious than gold. In this Protocol, the quench pictures that testing: faith is proved through grief and pressure, with praise, glory and honor in view when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Do not despise the sudden shock. Without it, your faith is just soft metal waiting to bend.

View Source Video: Fire Makes It Soft. Shock Makes It Permanent.

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