Where I am and How I Got Here: part two

I wrote the first part of this blog a while back now, and I suppose I should try and finish what I was saying.  I wrote, waaaay back then, about how this time with Joel was not the first time life had taken a turn which tested my faith.   I wrote a bit about my struggles then, and my relationship with God, etc.

The thing is, I worry sometimes that people see a "half finished" product in my faith journey, and don't realize it.  How can I explain this...  people sometimes mention my faith, how "strong" it is, or how they are "amazed" at the way I've trusted God in all of this.

And so I want to make it very clear... you have stepped in on a process part way through.  I want to make sure that if you see someone who is "struggling" with their faith, someone who is angry at God, someone who seems "flounder" with all the question, that you realize this might be because they are just starting out in the process.  This says NOTHING about the "quality" of the clay... it's about where the clay is in the process of being worked. 

At first, it is just a hard lump of, well, guck.  Seriously.  Clay gets a lot of work before it's even usable.  I'm not a potter, I don't know much about it, but I have had a lump of clay in hand before, and I sure don't know who ever figured out that you could actually make amazing and useful things out of it.  It looks to me, at first glance, like something you would put out with the trash.  Who'd guess with a lot of molding, kneading, working, and putting on the serious heat, amazing things can be fashioned?

The point is that the same quality of clay might look really different depending on what stage you see it in.  It's wholly the potter's work that transform the clay.  And sometimes when the potter works something on the wheel, it might be looking pretty good, but then something goes a little "off," and the potter must re-mold and fashion it once again.

Every trial and difficulty that we go through can be used by our Potter to make something beautiful and useful out of us.  This is an understanding that comes THROUGH the trials themselves, we don't start out with that trust, it grows as we practice it.  The more we trust God, and seek Him in our pain and trouble, the more He can fashion us.  And the more He fashions us, the more we trust Him! 

Sometimes we might even think the pottery we are becoming is looking pretty good.  From our standpoint.  But maybe somewhere it is a little "off," a warp that will weaken us, a bubble that will fracture us when the heat is on, something that will mar the final product.  And then, in a sense, it might be "back to the drawing board" or pottery wheel for us.

Is there anything more painful to us?  Is there anything more difficult then feeling you are "almost a pot" and then being beaten down into a lump of clay?  Becoming weak, becoming nothing once again, being flattened and pummelled...

I don't know what stage of pottery I am right now.  I don't know if God is going to need to rework me once more, or twice more, or if a hot furnace is on the way.  Humility is the wisest course when we are made of clay.

But I can tell you that during all of this, I have many times been a "lump" of clay.  I have felt many times that what God was asking was too much.  I have needed to forgive other people many times for "not understanding," and then go back and forgive 'em again.  Many times I have been humbled by my own tears, and my own lack of control over the most important and basic factors of my life.  I have felt self pity and resentment in the dark of the night faced with a sick child and no sleep.  I have often said to God "I am forced to give You my son, how can You allow him these tears/this pain/this loss of ability?"  I have been unable to force the words between my gritted teeth, the words that would say "Something good can come even of this," the words that would say "I will do what You ask" to my God.

But I have been worked on this wheel for a long time now.  I have surrendered to these gentle and unflinching hands from long, long ago.  There is no going back for me.  There is no climbing off this wheel.  You are looking at more than 20 years of the process.  I would not turn back from this path, as much as it lies in me I will follow in this path, and God will supply all the other 99% of it.  For my part is 1%.  I say "Yes" to the Potter.  And He does the rest...

So my point is,  if you come across someone in a "lump" state, keep it in mind.  It never looks like much at this point.  Don't judge.  Don't think "they are not 'handling' this well," or "Man, are they angry, full of self-pity," etc, etc.  A lump of clay is what we all are.  It's the touch of the Potter that changes all that.  And if you see a vase forming, remember it is made of clay too.  It did not fashion itself.  A loving, creative hand has been there.

And if you find yourself in a "lump" stage of life, I hope this thought can bring you some courage: every lump of clay has the same potential.  And every beautiful piece of pottery is something you can turn into, if you let the Potter shape you.

Like I said, I don't want to begin to say what stage I might be in this whole thing.  Surely a struggle with anger, or greed or self-pity could work into my clay at any time.  What was forming might be broken down for a time.  But here is where I am: on the Potter's wheel.  And here is how I got there: I said, a LONG time ago, "Yes, Lord."...