Never Ending Project

“O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.” (Jer 18:6 AV)

 

I know the context is a negative one.  Israel has rebelled against the LORD and is facing enslavement to the Chaldeans.  For two generations, they will be in captivity in a kingdom that hated God.  They would be away from their beloved land and temple.  All they prized would be taken from them.  They may be tempted to feel as though God is unfair.  They may rebel under the correcting hand of God.  They may become bitter or resentful towards God.  There is a host of responses to the LORD’s hand that would not be healthy.  Above, it is suggested Israel is rebelling against God’s hand because they feel God does not have the right to do with them as He pleases.  There is another way to look at this.  That being, the determination, and skill of the potter result in a vessel of use and beauty.  In other words, there isn’t a lump of clay the potter cannot transform as long as the clay yields.  I am in His hand!  What a comforting thought.

There is hope for someone in need who places their trust in another who can meet that need.  I have written much regarding my time in physical therapy following shoulder surgery.  I have several experiences that can apply to the truth above.  As long as I placed my trust in the therapist and followed his or her instructions, my shoulder would heal and I would gain function that I had lost.  Many different experiences from the maxed-out T.E.N.S. machine to writing the alphabet on a wall with a ball.  Too many.  There is something that I have never regaled.  Going to therapy, I met many other patients.  Most of them were worse off than me.  There was the occasional heart patient.  There were others recovering from broken limbs, surgery of a different nature, or gaining strength from atrophy.  The hardest to witness was the rare but occasional accident victim who was disfigured from their experience.  Especially if their injury caused severely crippled legs or arms.  There was one such patient that came to therapy.  I younger man than myself, who suffered his injuries in a motorcycle accident.  I remember him because of what he wore to therapy.  He came dressed in pure white.  Everything was glistening.  Even his sneakers were pure white.  I heard the therapist explain that if he would follow her instructions to the letter, he could straighten out those limbs and gain almost all the function he had lost.  I was only there for about six or eight weeks, so I don’t know if he ever did.  The potential was there.  As long as he would allow her to bend and exercise his limbs back to health, there was no reason to think he couldn’t be healed.  It took commitment and trust.

The fact that I am in the hand of God may not always be a comforting thing, but it should be.  Being in the hand of God is as painful as our rebellion makes it.  The more we yield, the less trauma we experience.  The more we fight it, the harder it will go.  But let us not think about the negative here.  Let us dwell on the truth that we are in the hand of God and He will shape us into the person we desire to be.  The inner man strives to walk in obedience and faith.  He or she wants to please the Father.  Limitations of character or ability hinder us.  We want to believe and trust in God no matter how difficult a situation we face.  We want to endure hardships regardless of what they might be.  We fear that if faced with a situation bigger than we can handle, we will fail the LORD and embarrass ourselves.  Yet, we are in the hand of the potter.  I also see a determined plan in the mind of the Potter.  A potter does not drop a lump of clay on his table with no plan.  He doesn’t mold the clay into what it naturally wants to be.  It naturally wants to be a plain lump.  The potter has in his or her mind what he needs or desires from the lump.  The lump is shaped accordingly.  So too is it with God.  He has a plan for my life and a purpose or goal in mind.  Everything I face is part of that plan.  I am eternally grateful I am in His hand to shape as He pleases.  Trust is the ingredient that will make the process all the easier.