Psalm 72:24
forging a pliable heart
Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me. (Psalm 72:24 DR)
It is often only in hindsight that we can see how God works in our lives through the midst of circumstances that we would rather not (at the time at least) experience. Yet in His providence these times of hardship, heartache and suffering can be used—if we are docile to God’s will—to forge virtue in our souls and loosen our attachments to the things of this world.
That is not to say that the process is therefore easy or pleasant; the term “forge” entails a great intensity of heat so as to make metal pliable enough to shape into what the blacksmith desires. In a similar way the sufferings and trials of this life provide the necessary “heat” so that our hearts become pliable enough for God to shape and refashion in His likeness. Without adversity our hearts can become stiffened with pride and thus brittle when attempting to be shaped; it is for good reason that the Scriptures use the metaphor of the potter and the clay (cf. Jeremiah 18:1-11).
As the Psalmist returns to himself, his recollection of the past in which he was vexed by the prosperity of the wicked is now transformed. In the moment it seemed like God had turned His face aside and was blind to the plight of the righteous, but in hindsight the Psalmist sees that God’s hand was always upon Him and was yet still leading him, even though at the time circumstances might have seemed otherwise. But now that he is on the other side of it he sees the truth, by which the entire experience is transformed. He is now received with the glory of the righteous and of their Lord, the reward of those who hope in God.
In my own life I sometimes look back on painful experiences or circumstances and see that even though they were unpleasant at the time, they were things that God used to work in my heart in ways that might not have otherwise been possible. I did my fair share at times of kicking against the goads, but God is faithful even in the midst of our hard-headedness. And while I wouldn’t necessarily want to re-experience some things and could have avoided much heartache if I had had more prudence or docility to God’s will, there is another sense in which without those things I would not have learned humility or other virtues that—even though they still have a long way to go to be perfected—at least are on the horizon of my mind, when otherwise I might have been way too comfortable to ever give them any thought. I am reminded of the verse of Psalm 118: “It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy justifications.” (Psalm 118:71 DR)
For this animation I didn’t have a solid concept, but I found this really cool image of a record and thought it might be fun to make something with it. I could try and retcon some meaning out if it, but I just kind of thought it looked cool.
I cut out the image in Photoshop and brought it into After Effects. I put another image on top and masked it appropriately and applied Stretch to both sides so that it looked like streaks where coming out of the middle of the record, which I thought was pretty fun.
I added an abstract image in the background and added some Turbulent Displace and finally added a bunch of color correction and some Glow to finish this out.
Enjoy.
Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me.
(Psalm 72:24 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: