The Process

“The higher you go the broader your horizon” come to me one day standing atop a limestone silo at the cement plant.  I had heard a missionary speak those words and they resonated with me.  God gave those words to me in a moment of “egoitis” atop that silo.  Egoitis is my word when you think more on yourself than you should.

I had finished college, pastored my first church, and returned to the cement plant after a five-year layoff.  I was discouraged having resigned that first church.  Called, ordained, graduated, and resigned, I was alone on the silo covered with a massive spill of crushed limestone.  At the moment, it seemed that my supervisors were having fun placing me on the silo with hard labor as their intent and humiliation as their goal.

Semi-depressed, I stood there breathing the sulfur exhaust from the limekilns, dressed in steel-toed boots, hardhat, safety glasses, goggles, leather gloves, and a number two flat shovel.  I peered through the steam from the lime hydrator observing the massive quarry walls.  I wanted to be a pastor of a church.  What was I doing here?  Why could I not get a church?  Why were four years of pastoral preparation through university training regressing to pre-college employment at the plant?

As I studied the quarry, I remembered what I learned in history, geology, and science classes about the limestone. The quarry walls were the result of innumerable tiny sea shells silted and forged together by pressure after the deluge of Noah.  The layers of limestone were slanted rather than being vertical or horizontal towering about 200-300 feet from the quarry floor to the surface.

I questioned God and He reminded me of my calling using the limestone.  For thousands of years the limestone was the resting place of dead sea creatures in tiny shells.  One day someone drilled into those solidified shells and filled the holes with explosives.  After the blast, limestone of all sizes flew separated from the bedrock.

Giant machines recovered the limestone of various sizes and hauled them to a primary crusher.  The primary crusher hammered large limestone into smaller pieces.  Some pieces went through the crusher untouched.  Most all of the limestone went to a secondary crusher by conveyor belt where the stone was hammered smaller. 

Some stone fell by the wayside and some stone was untouched as it continued to climb to a third crusher, which hammered the stone again.  Some stone continued, some fell by the wayside, and some was untouched as it continued up to the silos of the cement and lime kilns.  Limestone headed for the cement kilns would be mixed with iron ore, aluminum, and other materials then pulverized. 

The pulverized material would be cooked in the cement kiln at @2200 degrees forming balls of various sizes which went to another crusher which sized them to travel to another crusher which pulverized the balls and Gipson to make cement.

Limestone that went to the limekilns went to another crusher which sized the stone into small stone called rice, #2 rock, and #3 rock.  These three sizes were cooked converting them into lime.  Lime goes through a small crusher and then to a hydrator, placing the water back into to make hydrated lime.  Hydrated lime is used in thousands of products.  Water purification relies heavily on hydrated lime.  Cement mixed with lime makes mortar mix.

As I studied this process from the quarry to bridges, houses, dams, and everything lime that utilizes cement, crushed rock, and lime I realized God was showing me that each of us is transformed differently.  One day God took my spiritually dead life and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Dunamis the Greek word for power and is the root word of dynamite.  I was one of those stones that had to be crushed to be useful for the Kingdom.  My egoistis had me looking at other preachers who seemingly were unscathed, who had churches, and who were prospering.  I immediately thought of pouring concrete in a bridge.  There cement, which had pulverized limestone mixed with limestone of various sizes that could have come directly from the quarry, untouched except by the initial explosion, mixed together and solidified make a bridge for travelers to pass.  That was a marvelous revelation.  It is a possess to get where God wants you.

I turned to that massive spill, the neglect and irresponsibility of some cement employee, and started the possess of returning limestone into the silo.  It was not long before other laborers appeared and started their turn in humility.  When they complained, I reminded them that someone had to cleanup the mess of someone’s neglect.  That’s what God did at Calvary.

Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6 KJV).