My first pastorate was in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, which was famous at that time for having the world's largest steel-tube rolling mills. They created a seamless tube there which was unparalleled. Many was the time I stood in one of those great machines (the command module was called the pulpit, incidentally) with the man operating the machine.

I'd see a great serpent of molten metal come slithering down into the machine, and it would be chopped off. Then the machine would grab it by its ends and begin to spin. By centrifugal force, that bar of molten metal would open from the inside out, forming a perfect tube of steel without seam and without blemish.

Many times I asked the men directing those machines, "What's the most important ingredient in the process?"

The answer was always the same: "It's the temperature of the metal. If it is too hot, it will fly apart; if it is too cold, it will not open as it ought. Unless you catch the molten moment, you cannot make the perfect tube."

Unless we catch those molten moments when character can develop, we miss our opportunity just as the disciples did.