Are You Just Swinging the Handle?

As you look at your life today in honesty and transparency, you might say to yourself I have lost that edge I once had, that excitement, that fire, that spiritual passion I once had about Church and working for God.

If indeed you have lost your edge, how can you get it back?

2 Kings 6:4-5
4 And he went with them.
They went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees. 5 As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water. "Oh, my lord," he cried out, "it was borrowed!"

This very thing happened to me one time. Well it wasn’t a borrowed ax but I lost the ax head.

Growing up we had a wood burning stove in our house for heat. I personally had a love/hate relationship with the stove. I loved the fact that it produced a great amount of heat on the cold winter days, but I hated when it was time to go and split wood. It always seemed that we would run out of wood at the most inopportune times. I would bundle up and go outside to find the ax and chop out a few pieces to bring back in. One time in particular I will never forget. I was aggravated because it was my turn again to go and chop wood in the cold and it seemed that everything that could go wrong did. I came down hard with the ax and halfway through my swing the ax head came off and went shoring through the air leaving a nice size whole in the side of the barn. I had never seen anything like that happen before. I was at a complete loss for words and stood staring at the whole.

Later on I learned that the only possible reason the ax head could have come off the handle was because it had not been taken care of properly. This must have been the case for the guy in 2 Kings 6 who lost the ax head. It’s a responsibility thing really. If you are going to own a tool such as an ax then you are responsible for keep the ax sharp and the head on the handle.

At this point it would have made no sense at all for this man to keep on chopping on trees with just a wooded handle would it? He would have made no progress at all.

A lot of time Christians can do the same thing today. You lose your cutting edge, and you are just going through the motions, making no progress at all.

You are chopping away with just a wooden handle!

The thought processes goes something like this. Well, I know I’m supposed to go to church, so I will go. As long as I stay looking busy and not in anyone’s way then nobody’s going to know the state my heart is in. The sad part is this can go on for days, weeks, or months, but some people have been doing this for years.

No progress, No Growth. They are just swinging the handle without an ax head.

If this is you, do not just keep swinging the ax handle. If you are not making progress, admit it. Until you are willing to face up to the fact that you have not been growing, you can never regain your spiritual edge.

In Him,
Joe