In the Potters Hands

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

I went back to the Potters House today with some friends.  Just to show them around a little and let them meet Shannon.  I wanted them to hear of the wonderful stories Shannon has to tell of how the Potters House got started and how the Lord continues to meet all their needs.  While I was there I took some pictures of the potters wheel.

Scripture makes reference to us as the clay and the Lord as the Potter.  As I have made no bones about my struggles these last few days I began to ask myself...How pleased am I with the person God is making me to be.  Me with my limitations, moods and feelings.  With the things I struggle with from day to day.  I still have some hard situations in my life but I am trusting God with them and have much peace.  The fact of the matter is I have a wonderful marriage, children and God has been faithful, but still I was downcast.  We look to circumstances for our happiness but when our circumstances are good and we are troubled how do you explain a restlessness within?

It is a condition of our heart.  Jesus is our Peace.  Maybe our eyes have gotten on ourselves and we are evaluating how we think we are doing?  The world, the flesh and the devil have control of our conscience many times.  We are evaluating us by our performance, ministry, family or work.  We feel false guilt even.  We are controlled by our conscience.  Learning for the Spirit to be over our conscience is the way to freedom.  Actually freedom is the way to the Spirit.  You cannot be led by the Spirit if you have a heavy conscience full of condemnation and shame.  Controlled by others or what they think of you.  Christ died to give us a clean conscience so we might hear His voice.  He promises to direct us through out our lives.

The gospel tells us to confess our sins and that we are already forgiven past, present and future.  That we are valuable and chosen before the beginning of time.  That we have Gods favor and His love is actively awaiting us each morning as we arise.  But can we be up all the time?  Can we have joy even when things are troubling us or can we have peace no matter what our circumstances?  Yes we can.  Do we all the time..I don't.

I am learning to trust the Potter.  I am learning that He is molding me into the imagine of His Son.  I have a dear friend that every time it is cloudy or raining I pray for her, actually several of my friends are that way.  They know I love the rain and the cloudy days.  But their body chemistry is such it fights with days like that.  They even have an artificial light they use in the winter time.  What about when I am cloudy inside for no reason... is that ok?  Does Jesus, Father and Spirit meet me in my lamenting, in my sadness no matter what it maybe.  Absolutely!  The Psalms are full of writing of crying out to God in depression, desperation and sadness. Sometimes I think we are the closest to God in our desperation.  We know we need Him.

God meets us wherever we are.  He meets us in our struggles.  In our hard circumstances of life.  Dealing with difficult people.  In us thinking we are not who we want to be, when we think we should be over such a struggle surely by now.  He meets us wherever we are, no matter who we are.  All we have to do is to cry out to Him.  He created us to be the very person, have the personality and the features we have.  I am not saying don't try to change but to trust God with the changing.  There is a rest in the clay on that potter wheel.  It just rest there as the hands of the Potter shapes and forms a thing of beauty.  Did you notice the bottom wheel is where the Potters feet are placed in turning the wheel so the Potters hands are never off the clay.

So, do I accept that what God is doing in me is good?  Do I accept my failures and lack of doing the things I know I should do and not doing the things I know I should?  Do I accept me?  Created in the very image of God for His glory.  Do I trust He sees the good and beauty that He would make me by living in me and knows exactly what He is doing in my life and heart and the lives of those around me. He is making me into the image of His own Son, with life and love and laughter and even sadness dependent on Him for my very own life I live.  Do I see I am unique and dearly loved and delighted in, so much so, that He took this hopeless, worthless child and made me His own. I was but a poor slave, begging child who had no life and didn't know where to find it.  I was starved and malnourished, dying inside.  He brought me to the throne of God and gave me a seat at the banquet table and gave me good food to eat and a place in His kingdom.  He has given me gifts and talents and a personality and grace and mercy.  He has given me life Himself.  He gave His very Son to come and get me and bring me into the family of God. He has set me free. So even in my sadness, in my grey days, I can have a peace and a rest in the Potters Hands.  I can see His grace on display in me and my days...even the sad ones and I can be glad, that I make Him glad, by trusting Him and resting in the palm of His hand.