Flower Vases And Ceral Bowls

Jeremiah 18:1-5
The LORD gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, "Go down to the shop where clay pots and jars are made. I will speak to you while you are there." So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so the potter squashed the jar into a lump of clay and started again.

God's version of show and tell.
Putting things in a language that we can understand.
I know this particular passage is dealing with the nation of Israel and their national pride and stubbornness of wanting to do their own thing.
I have found over the years that doing my "own thing" usually involves a lot of bad decisions that are made with my head and my desire and my wants....usually such foolish actions are made outside of God's will. All a person has to do is to look at the track record they have created with their choices. Couple that with the fact that there is usually a lack of peace and contentment and you've got the receipe for someone who is probably miserable...
Miserable emotionally.
Miserable physically.
And definitely miserable spiritually.

Such repeated actions of living life on these terms, actually brings a hardness to a persons heart when it comes to hearing God or following Him.
Repeated choices create repeated behavior. In one sense we program ourselves to respond a certain way when confronted with situations and circumstances.
Take addiction.....
We run into bad feelings or confronted with situations we don't really want to face.....we begin to feel fear and doubt in our ability to do the right thing. Where do we turn? What becomes our solution to every problem? We go get high. Why? Because that is just what we've always done. That becomes the ditch we run to when ever life gets hard. Not exactly the way I think God wants us to live.

The whole Jeremiah "Pottery Barn" story is to help me understand that God is in control. If it is on God's heart to work in me, then I benefit the most when I simply cooperate with Him.

Example:
God (Potter) wants to create a flower vase.
Me (the lump of clay) doesn't want to be a flower vase. Nothing cool about being a vase. I want to be a cereal bowl.  Nothing cool about being filled with stinky flowers...but Captain Crunch....now that's cool.

God takes me and begins to work in me....
Shaping me....
Touching me (Holy Spirit)
But I feel the vase thing coming on.
I refuse to cooperate. I refuse to be pliable. I grow hard.
Can't shape dried out clay, now can you?
God takes me off the wheel and lays me aside where I get to be....are you ready for it.....A dried out lump of dumb clay. Never attaining a state of being anything.
Flower vase or cereal bowl.
Now who suffers in this entire process? Me or God? Well, that would be me. God gets other clay to work on and is churning out pots, vases and yes....even cereal bowl. But because of my stubbornness and refusal to allow God to work. I up on the shelf feeling really bad at this time. Whose fault? Mine.

Step #1 points to the truth that I am powerless to be a cereal bowl.
I am powerless to even be the flower vase. I'm nothing more than a lump of clay.
I am in need of someone who can being order to my chaotic, unmanageable life.
That would be God.
Step #1 puts me back on God's wheel so that He can work in me and on me changing me into who He desires to be.
Now that's some good stuff?
Don't you agree?

By the way....letting God work in me and on me, I found out that being a flower vase is pretty cool. I wished I'd done it sooner. I wish I had surrendered and let Him work in me.


Until tomorrow...
God on you....
mb