Sharpening the Saw

Sharpening the Saw

I’ve picked up a new “hobby” the past year in a new home—woodworking. As in working with wood to finish my basement, including framing, building ceiling soffetts, putting in a wood floor, and putting in the floor trim and shoe.

Of course, all of this takes a sharp saw. Working with my circular saw for several projects, I finally decided to replace the blade. But I did something first. I timed how long it took to cut a piece of wood with the old blade. I then timed how long it took to cut the same length piece of wood with the new blade.

The old blade? Fifty-five seconds.

The new blade? Twelve seconds.

Not only was the time incredibly less; the work and effort were much less. It was like the proverbial hot knife through warm butter when I used the new blade.

There was something else about this little experiment that intrigued me. Since the saw blade only slowly became duller, I had not detected the extra time and effort necessary to use my saw. This was like another proverbial image: the frog in the kettle of slowly heating water who never detects that he is being cooked! I was clueless to the huge amount of wasted time and effort that I was indulging in by using a warn out saw blade.

Readers of Steve Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People will be familiar with the principle of sharpening the saw in one’s personal and professional life. The concept highlights our need to take care of the tool of the soul—the self. To perform at the highest level, to function well emotionally, volitionally, mentally, relationally, spiritually, and physically, we must keep our saw sharp.

What is the “saw” personally? It’s our inner character—our spiritual maturity through spiritual connection to Christ.

How’s your character saw? If it were dull, would you even detect it since you’ve not checked your blade in ages?

We can try to “do” ministry minus the sharp ministry tool of a soul fine-tuned by spiritual formation. Try as we might, we’ll eventually fail—hurting others with our dull blade.

Here’s to keeping our spiritual saw sharp.