No Quarry, No Glory

One of the lessons I learnt early on in my Christian walk is the principle/concept of preparation. For any man or woman that God will use, He will take them through a process where He prepares them for the task He has set for them. Throughout scripture we see examples of how God prepared or trained His vessels. In the Psalms David says, “You teach my hands to war and my fingers to battle”.

David himself, was first a shepherd boy before he became king. As a shepherd he learnt how to stand and fight against the odds. He killed lions and bears, this experience helped him deal with Goliath and this was what introduced him to the whole of Israel. From fighting with Goliath, he became a famous warrior, well known in the nation of Israel such that songs were written of him. These songs got Saul jealous and he began to see David as a threat. As a result, David had to hide from Saul who sought to kill him. During his time in hiding, the Bible says he drew to himself a band on 300 men who were considered useless to society, and he trained these to be warriors named among the best in Israel. These men killed giants like David, one is known to have chased a lion to cave and killed it, others went behind enemy lines just to bring water to David. 

All of this was a time for preparation and testing for David. You see, although Samuel anointed him king over Israel when he was quite young, the fulfillment of this waited for the death of Samuel and several years in the wilderness for David, during which time he learnt not only to lead men into battle and rule over them, but he also developed a relationship with God. During this time he wrote many of the Psalms that we read today, Psalms that reveal the nature of relationship that David had with God. His time away from the throne also reveals the respect he had for God’s anointing and his understanding of loyalty to leadership.

Another example is Moses, who spent 40 years as a shepherd, away from the comforts of the Pharaoh’s palace in Egypt where he was brought up. It was during this time that he was made Israel’s deliverer. You will recall that the key question he was asked when he tried to stop an Israelite who was beating his countryman was “who has made you leader over us?” He did not have an answer for this, until God sent him back after calling out to him from the burning bush. In that 40 years he learnt how to survive in the wilderness, he learnt patience for he dealt with sheep. When God called the Israelites His sheep, Moses had an understanding of what this meant. Also only as a shepherd was he able to better relate with his people. Remember he grew up in the palace, but the Israelites as described by Joseph, were shepherds by profession. And so he was able to relate with them.

We can point to so many others. Jesus for example who was obedient and grew in wisdom and favor with God and men in the 18 years we hear nothing of Him (the last record of Jesus as a child is the story we hear of Him being left at the temple, possibly at the age of 12, we next hear of His baptism at the age of 30). We also have Paul who went away to Arabia for 3 years where he was taught the gospel by God Himself. We have so many examples.

In our own times, we know of great men and women of God, who had to go through the process of preparation before they come out to the public. Gbile Akanni for example writes that when he got the call to preach and teach, God told him that he was on probation but that he would still have to continue with the teaching of the word. 10 years after being told this, is when God told him that he had graduated. Meanwhile, in those 10 years, he had continued preaching, thinking along the line that his probation was over, yet God waited 10 years. We can share similar stories of many of our favorite preachers who did not just arrive on the scene without God taking time to prepare them.

It is the same with you and me today. Do not despise the time of your preparation, do not rush to just fulfill what you feel is your calling without first waiting on God to finish His work in you.

You see, in the Old Testament we are told the story of how Solomon built the first temple. In the account, we are told that there was no sound of a hammer at the construction site because all the stones had been chiseled and properly shaped at the quarry site. There was no noise at the construction site.

Peter says we are living stones being built up into a holy temple and I believe God does not want noise at the construction site. He wants us to be properly chiseled and the quarry site so that He just fits us into our place at the construction site which is the area of our ministry. For the same Peter says we are a royal priesthood which means our service/ministry is to God and Paul says the fivefold ministry is there to equip us for service to God. And so God wants to smooth out our rough edges before we enter public ministry, He does not want the world to hear the noise of His chiseling at the construction site. Allow Him therefore to prepare you. Jesus took 3 years to prepare the apostles, grant Him time to work on you. Do not rush, do not be impatient, wait on Him, allow Him to make you as He made Moses. It might take 3 years, maybe less, or it may take 10 years and maybe more. Entrust yourself to His hands, after all, He is the potter you are the clay.

 

Know this, if you do not spend time at the quarry site, there is no glory at the construction site.