Saturday, August 29, 2009

I'm a Mess

Do you ever find yourself wondering if you will ever be on the right path? Wondering if perhaps God is going to keep you heading in the same direction for an extended period and actually reveal His plan for your life? Yep - me too.

Every time I think I know or understand what God is doing with me, He changes the direction. Or at least that is how it feels. I am a list person, so personally I would prefer God show me the list and we could just get to work on it. After all we no longer live in the Old Testament times and my chances of living to 500 are unlikely, so we need to get busy. I'm not getting any younger.

God has put all kinds of passions and desires within my heart and mind that involve serving Him and living out His word. In my finite mind, it would seem that He should be opening doors and making the way for this to happen in a rather timely fashion. Doesn't seem to be the case.

I am a messy work in progress. I thought a lot about this in the last few days as it felt like large chunks of my life were just falling apart or not coming together in a very pretty fashion. I don't know a lot (or anything) about making pottery. But as I thought about my life and all that has been going on recently, I just envisioned Jesus up to his elbows (literally) in clay and water as He put me on the pottery wheel and worked at molding me and shaping me into the vessel he desires. I imagined his hands right there in the messiness of my life trying to make something beautiful out of it. His living water pouring into me and shaping me. His hands pressing, pushing, tenderly creating. While all I can see is this fast spinning-out-of-control view of life, Jesus looks down and sees what He is creating. From my place on the potter's wheel, there is stuff flying all over the place. Pieces of my life splattering on the floor, parts of me just dropping off to the side. Things in my life that appear to have no shape from my view on the wheel - have an intentional design from the view of the potter. Because I cannot see the finished product, I get frustrated and wonder what will I be when God is finished. I'm too focused on the end and not the process. This I do know. The nail-pierced hands of The Potter are carefully and lovingly molding this lump of clay into something useful.

1 comment:

Lynn said...

I so appreciate this picture of how we see our lives. I have felt like I was flying to pieces on the potter's wheel as well. Yet to know He has a plan and a purpose in all He is trimming away and changing. Such a great picture of how our lives change and how we grow as we journey with our Lord!