Jul
28
Alloying Carefully
Filed Under Devotional
I spent part of my career in the foundry industry and I was always fascinated by the properties of metals. Alloying (mixing metals to produce a product with specific properties) is a real art and, sometimes, illogical. For example, you mix copper, a soft metal, with aluminum, another soft metal, to produce an alloy that is hard. Add nickel, another soft metal, to the mix and you get nickel aluminum bronze which is very hard. Hardness can be associated with strength, but so can tensile strength, the ability to give. Hard without tensile strength is brittle and brittle is weak.
Our hearts can be like an alloy. It depends on what we put into the mix. Guard your heart, because once you start the alloying process, you can only add elements, not remove them. If your heart becomes hard and brittle against God, you can become lost.
“Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap.” Luke 21:34
It can happen.