POTTER

Please be encouraged to take the poll at right, based on this past Tuesday's blog post.

At KFA (www.kenoshafirst.com) this weekend we hosted potter Denise Moline of Silly Sisters Pottery in Lake Villa, Illinois.  She formed a bowl on the potter's wheel onstage while I spoke.

I learned from her that when you buy clay from a store, it comes in a nice, neatly packaged, sensibly shaped 25-pound square block.  Some of us had built nice block lives, all neat and orderly - and then we found ourselves in the hands of the Potter - and the first thing He did was allow that orderly shape to be pounded away so now your block looks/feels like an unattractive lump that has been altered by the Master Artist who has something else in mind for you but hasn’t bothered to inform you of what it is yet.

But every artist knows what he’s making before he begins working.  It’s important that we get that.  God knew His plans for you before His hands made contact with you.  God isn’t trying to decide what to do with you; He already knows. 

'I can't tell you the number of times I've felt worthless.'

The will of the Potter is worked out on the Potter’s wheel.  But here is a piece of pottery that God made with His own hands ... and it’s flawed ... it’s messed up.  What happened that we wound up in His hand spoiled and marred?  What has happened over the course of your life that made you feel like God forgot you?

You’ve felt worthless.  Is that how God made you?  No.  

You’ve felt broken and discarded.  Is that how God designed you?  No.  

What happened?

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve felt worthless.  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve felt like a failure, or the number of times I’ve felt useless.

The Potter held the vessel and the vessel was marred.  Nevertheless, the Potter doesn’t toss the vessel aside; He holds it in His hand.  And then the Potter does something very interesting.  He makes the vessel again.  And in order to do that He had to put it back on the wheel.  

You can try to fix your own messes and put yourself at the mercy of a world that doesn’t love you ... or ... you can let the Potter put you back on the wheel and work on you.

My friend, stay on the wheel.  I promise you, it’s safer for you to be in the hand of God than any other place.  Dear clay ... everything God desires for your life is on that wheel.

And be blessed.