Strengthened Through Trial!

The verb temper may be defined as “to make stronger and more resilient through hardship.” The process of tempering swords may be compared to a process that is essential to the building of our character this is the process of being tempted.

You may be thinking, What? Isn’t being tempted something to avoid? We must realize that being tempted is not the same as succumbing to temptation. The process of temptation reveals what is genuine in our character and what is false, similar to the process of refining gold in fire, in which everything that isn’t pure gold is burned away.

Every day of your life, your character will be tested! These tests are not for the purpose of defeating us but rather for strengthening us.

Each of us has weak areas in our character. And testing, or tempering, has much more to do with checking for our weaknesses than for our strengths. The Roman blacksmiths would start out with weak, porous pieces of metal when crafting their swords. That condition of the metal describes the inner state of human beings, who contend with the effects of fallen humanity. 

To be tempted is to be assessed for moral weaknesses “spots” in our character, so they can be removed, and so we can become leaders of principle. And as our character is strengthened, we will prove our trustworthiness to lead others.


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