FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2008
I've had this pitcher for a couple of months now. Maybe even longer. To be honest, I've kind of lost track of the time. I purchased it because my friend told me about a little experiment that another woman tried. She took a simple pitcher which represented her life, and let it fall to the floor and shatter into pieces. And then she put it back together again. Sounds goofy right? I mean, why would you take something that is whole, and let it break into hundreds of tiny bits, only to try to put it back together again??
Which brings me back to my point earlier-- that I still have this pitcher. It is still in one piece. One big, unbroken piece.... And it is that way for a reason. Because it really does symbolize my life. The point of this exercise is to allow the pitcher to be broken so that it can be re-shaped. But I haven't been able to bring myself to break it because then it would mean that I am allowing myself to be broken in spirit. And I, my friends, do not take kindly to being broken. I am as stubborn as a mule! As an ox! "Why do I need to be fixed?", is what I think. "Why can't it be the other guy?" is my plea. And God's answer is this: "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? ' Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?" ' ". (Romans 9:20). Ouch!!! I think it probably hurts me more to think that I might have offended God and kept Him from doing His work in me than it would hurt for me to allow myself to be broken and reshaped by Him.
The reality is that God knows me so much better than I know myself. It doesn't seem possible that there could be someone who could know us better than we know ourselves, but there is (Check out Psalm 139 and you will see). And if God knows me that intimately, than why am I so afraid of letting Him make me into something that He knows will be better in the long run? Jeremiah 18:4 says, "But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.".
I'm scared of the unknown. I'm scared of letting go of all that I know and allowing Someone else to take control of the reins. My friend made a comment earlier today that I am paying more attention to now. I had told her that I felt like I was stuck. That I wasn't really moving forward anywhere. I want to move. And she told me that I would move forward faster if I wasn't digging in my heels. To which I shrugged my shoulders and said, "I'm letting God do whatever He wants to do.". But even though I've felt like I'm giving up control of my life to God, I don't believe that I really could have. Because God won't take control if someone isn't really willing to let Him. If I don't allow myself to become broken, how can God change me? I will be stuck if I keep this up!
I think maybe it's time for me to break that pitcher!!!!!!! Maybe then I can truly be clay in the hands of the Potter!