In his book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey tells the story of the woodcutter. A very strong woodcutter asked for a job in a timber company and he got it. The pay was really good and so was the work condition. For those reasons, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.
The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees.
“Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!”
Very motivated by the boss words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring 15 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing less and less trees.
“I must be losing strength,” the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.
“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.
“Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees…”
Our lives are just like that. In today’s word everyone is busier than ever, but less happy than ever. We need to take time to sharpen the “axe”. If we don’t we will become dull and lose our effectiveness. Nothing wrong with activity and hard work but we should not get so busy that we neglect the truly important things in life, like our personal life, taking time to get close to our Creator, giving more time for our family, taking time to read etc.
We can sharpen the “axe” of our physical and mental lives by making sure we have god nutrition, proper rest, regular exercise and the right amount of air, water and sunshine.
And for the spiritual life, Paul says in his letter to the Romans that we should be “transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:2) through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.
This act of the Holy Spirit in renewing and sharpening us needs to happen on a regular basis. In fact EG White talks about it when she says we need to “Consecrate yourselves to God every morning” and to make this our very first work every day.
Thus we may be able to sharpen the “axe” so that we would be effective woodcutters for God in the advancement of the kingdom.