A “Buzzing” Dilemma
I recently found myself in a difficult situation. Since I am a beekeeper it is normal for me to need to lift boxes that weigh 60-100 pounds. Not a big deal whenever I am healthy. However, when you suffer a significant shoulder injury it necessitates a change in approach. A small colony can have 2 boxes making it weigh somewhere north of 100-150 pounds or a larger one with something like 4 boxes can weigh closer to 250-300 pounds. I found myself in a season needing to lift the back of these colonies so I could slide pieces of equipment underneath them and out again. How was I going to do it essentially with one arm? Even as someone who strength trains frequently, a 200 pound curl is certainly out of the question for my 160 pound frame. The answer . . . leverage.
All I had to do was put my left hand on the bottom of the colony, placing my left shoulder against the top giving me the ability to rock the entirety of it forward using my right hand to slide the equipment where needed. Brute force? Not an option given the injury. However, a little bit of thought about leverage and angles could get the job done. The book of Ecclesiastes makes the point:
“Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.”
-Ecclesiastes 7:19
The strongest man in the room is not necessarily the one who can bench press the most weight. There is nothing wrong with having a strong lifting routine, but there is something invaluable to having wisdom that makes a man stronger. Wisdom is skillful living on the basis of truth, truth as revealed by God. Practically applying this in the day-to-day is the key to a man living with power and strength.
Learning To Think Wisely
Gentlemen, do not hear me saying that your strength is evil, that is the lie of an effeminate age. There are times for you to use the power of your body and mind to the glory of God. We all face such situations whether it be possessing the power in your body to help someone in an emergency crisis or simply being the strong shoulder for a family member to cry on in a moment of sorrow. What I am arguing for from the book of Ecclesiastes is not an absence of strength, but a furtherance of it by learning to live wisely. An army can have 10,000,000 powerful men, but if it is not led by those who know sound strategy it can be overthrown by a force of 1,000,000 or less.
What we need to do is to learn to be not only stronger, but smarter. Practically, we have a very illustrative section of Scripture to show us what this looks like. Frankly, we need to keep our axes sharp:
“If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed.” -Ecclesiastes 10:10
If you are cutting wood with an old, out-of-shape, blunter than a butter knife axe you will use a lot of strength. It is a pointless display of strength whereas you could have been more productive by exercising your mental strength. Scripture would urge us to consider the wise approach and encourages us to keep the blade sharp. Wisdom accompanies your God-given strength to use it in the best way so as to accomplish the most in the situation.
To be perfectly honest here, we’ve all been that guy hacking away at the tree trunk with a blunt axe. If you are saying that you have never done something like that, then you probably are the guy with the blunt edge right now. What do you have in your life that you need to sharpen in order to be stronger in Christ? Maybe in terms of the physical world, everything is going smoothly, however, you’re working 120 hours per week which is blunting the edge on your marriage. Perhaps the social media habit is escalating upward thereby blunting your discipline so that you no longer work as hard at your job. Then again, it could be that your hyper-focus on entertainment is slowly worsening the blade of your involvement at church. Brothers, you get the point, we all need to examine our lives and see what needs to be sharpened. I have areas of growth, you do as well.
Take The Time
Wisdom urges us not to simply use the blunt axe, but to take the time to actually sharpen it. I know we are all tempted to think that the time sharpening is wasted whenever we need to be cutting, but that is precisely how you end up being the idiot in the woods not getting anything done. I’m speaking to myself as much as anyone here, invest the time to sharpen the axe! Open the Word of God and do some soul searching being guided by the grace of Christ through His Spirit. It is not wasted time for God uses the period of “sharpening” just as much as the work of “cutting” for His glory. He is molding you, shaping you, and preparing you for the task He wants you to accomplish. Sometimes it hurts when the grinding stone hits the blade of our lives. Sparks can fly in every direction from sheer force. By the power of God’s wisdom, we will find ourselves stronger than ever before.
Let us live not simply strongly, but with wisdom that adds to our strength. May we have the ability to see the best ways to use our God-given talents in our families, churches, vocations, communities, and in every realm to which the Lord has called us. I pray His knowledge fills our hearts so that we are empowered by His might to be sharper today than we were yesterday as Christ works in our souls. Keep working, keep sharpening, keep chopping, and be certain that your strength is being used most wisely for this is the call of your Creator!
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