Time to Use Your Imagination
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In yesterday’s installment, I referenced starting my second year as the pastor of First United Methodist Church as part of looking at Paul’s encouragement for the folks of the church at Thessalonica to live in such a way as they were reliant on Christ alone. Today, I want to encourage us to flesh that out a little more using one of the more well-known scriptures of the Bible, Jeremiah’s channeling God’s example of the faithful being clay in the potter’s hand, molded as the potter saw.
Given that we are coming up on a weekend where the good folk of the United States of America are celebrating the freedom laid out in the Declaration of Independence, and we are in the midst of a time where we are facing restrictions on how we go about our lives in the public square, one could make the case God’s faithful need to revisit Jeremiah’s words as a way to keep things in perspective. Knowing there are so many passionate folks who are either advocating for or chafing against certain guidelines and mandates in the interest of the public good, let us hear again these words from the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 18, verses 1-6, which are as follows:
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.
Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
Rather than break it down in too much detail today, I want to boil all this down to just a few questions for us to consider as we enter into the Fourth of July celebrations and observations that are imminent:
Notice that God used the work of the potter to illustrate the relationship God envisioned between the faithful and the creator. Who or what is it that God is attempting to use for you to see God’s truth before your very eyes? More importantly, maybe, is to ask if there is a limit we are putting on God by consciously or subconsciously ruling out the possibility that God could ever use someone or something to show us divine truth?
God told Jeremiah straight up that God’s people are like the clay in the potter’s hand. “Yeah, we got that,” I can hear you saying. Let us not overlook, though, that in the example Jeremiah saw, the clay with which the potter was working was spoiled, and the potter reworked it into something good. What is is in our lives that God is attempting to rework and reform in such a way that it might be better than ever, suited for a great purpose?
Lord knows there is so much going on that we might be tempted to throw up our hands and say the entire thing is hopeless. No doubt.
However, it is PRECISELY in times like these we better be more convicted than ever that we worship a God of redemption - the potter, if you will, who takes spoiled clay and reworks it into another vessel that is good to him.
Weekends like this one, and times of societal transition and even upheaval, can’t help but inspire us in whatever way to imagine what the future might be like…let’s use our imagination and look forward to how the potter is going to take the spoiled clay of our lives and situation to make something good in the eyes of said potter.