When we listen up to God, and especially when we spend time with Him, He will be busy speaking things into our life about who we are and what He sees. Psalm 139 says, “you saw my substance being yet unformed. And in your book they were all written. The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them”.
More often than not, what God speaks to us, what He sees and says, doesn’t match up with our currant circumstances.
He operates in the realm of “speaking those things that are not as though they are”. (Romans 4:17)
The bible has numerous accounts of people’s lives revealing this truth.When you read it you realise that when God speaks and inputs into our lives, our lives won’t necessarily instantaneously change.
It’s a process, and without the process and events along the way we won’t get the result that God designed. Its much like what’s involved in the crafting of a piece of clay by a potter, into a work of art which is enjoyed and used, such as a bowl, cup or platter.
The potter sees that lump of clay as something far more than just a lump of clay, while everyone else is still seeing a blob of brown dirt.
David in the bible is an example of this. Everyone else thought he was the least of his brothers, not even important enough to be invited to a special celebration. He was regarded as an insignificant kid who sang to the sheep. But long before anyone else saw his potential, bravery and heart after God, God saw him and starting speaking to anyone who bothered to listen, “He’s to be the next king”
Gideon was busy hiding in a wine press protecting his grain from raiders. He saw himself as fearful and weak, let alone anyone else seeing him differently. But God saw Gideon as a warrior, and He spoke who Gideon was created to be. A brave warrior who trusted in God and the one man chosen to deliver his people from their oppressors. (Judges 6)
The list is long of those God saw, spoke and called to be something quite different from how they and others saw them. People like Joseph, Abraham, Mary, Peter, Matthew, Zacheus, and Paul. Not to mention the many others since then.
But if we study God, and see how he works in us, we’ll soon discover there are no shortcuts to the process. If we try to sidestep what God is working to mold and shape in us, we’ll usually end up having to go back around again until we are molded and developed in that area of our life.I guess much like a piece of clay on the potters wheel.
The thing about clay is that its easier to mold when it’s been softened. Its pretty hard to create anything when the clay is rock hard. It won’t yield to the potter’s hands, and the potter won’t force it, for if he does it will break into pieces.
People are the same. Unless our hearts are soft and we are prepared to deal with our issues; our hurts, offenses, disappointments and any other thing that causes hardness and resistance to our growth, we limit God ability to work in us. God will not push it, He never forces us. Because He loves us, He’ll often allow us to keep spinning around on the “wheel”, as He gently pours out His love on us like water, until we finally desperate yield to His “potters” hand.
Only then are we are able to get what He is saying deep down on the inside of us – in our very DNA, so that His words, which hold creative power can go to work. Then we allow him to shape us into far more than a blob of “brown dirt”. We become His masterpiece, His work of art, with a purpose and a plan to fulfill.
When God speaks, listen up. Where we know there is hardness of heart, let him soften us up. Don’t push him away, and quit jumping off the potters wheel. God has a plan for each one of us, just as He did David, Abraham, and all the others. We’ll only end up eventually feeling like a blob of clay on the floor, that has to be picked up and put back on the potters wheel again anyway. Stay put, and let God speak and work in you.
It’s all for a purpose, nothing has to be wasted. For God sees who we are, but also who we will be. He continues to speak those things that are not, as though they are. Trust Him, for He is after all the “master craftsman and He knows what He is doing.
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. (Ephesians 2:10)
“Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand” (Isaiah 64:8)
Prayer: Lord help me to quit jumping off the potters wheel. Instead help me to listen to you speaking, trusting that you will mold and shape me into who and what you see, rather than what I, or others perceive. In Jesus name Amen
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