Food For Thought Series Continued...
Pottery Plans
Sometimes we face great pain in our lives and we blame it on many factors, including God. Because of the sense of blame and self pity, we fall into several traps: Anger, frustration, unforgiveness etc...By time we become chained and eventually these feelings build strongholds in our lives that become immensely difficult to break down. We read God's word and promises and we feel they are so distant. In fact, God Himself becomes distant, because we have shut ourselves away from Him, refusing to hear his reasons and his divine purpose.
Then, because of His constant providence, He continues to strip us away from worldly solutions. All of a sudden, we find ourselves cornered with no way out but Him. At this time our prayers become different. We no longer pray, 'Get me out of this' or 'Help me get out of this' but we pray, 'Lord I have tried but I have failed. I have no solution but you.' Then the surmounting peace of the Lord overcomes your heart and mind. You find yourself yielding. Yes, yielding. The key word. We yield and surrender our all. And we realize that this is all He wanted from the beginning.
I have come to realize that we do not yield for two reasons:
- Our inability to logically accept the solution. We wonder how and why and keep running around in a vicious circle because the situation defies logic and what should be right.
- Our inability to accept pain in a certain area of our lives. Quite often, we store up treasures for ourselves in a certain place on earth: Our careers, our relationships, our possessions, our children etc. And we fear losing them. We fear failing in that area. We fear any harm that might touch these things. However, in reality, we are actually fearing the Hand of the Lord. We are fearing His 'pottery plans.' We would actually sometimes pray, 'Lord touch anything, take away anything but that.' And the Lord decides to strike just that to consecrate our hearts and minds only for Him.
Once we stop arguing with the Potter, we know the truth and it sets us free. His shaping is still painful, but merged with loving touces. His fingers become sometimes unpredictable, but He slowly reveals His plan. His pressure might become unbearable, but His accompanying Breath of Life eases the furnace. The shape might look strange, but our slow yielding will break the shell of our understanding. The process is slow but every day of yielding brings closer His deliverance.
posted by Amy at 10:39 AM
4 Comments:
Hey Honzi,
I guess 'Great Minds Think Alike' ;) - I almost lose hope that anybody would comment on my blog again - lool!
Anyhow,I get your point.
But sometimes even though ure thankful, God chooses to test you. Look at Abraham, he was dying for that one son and then all of a sudden he is asked to give him up as a sacrifice. I mean how immensely painful is that. And notice that he did NOT know that this was not going to happen - yet he did not hold away even his only son from God. I think part of Abraham's life with God was yielding - completely surrendering -to His will and to His voice and thats why he didnt even think twice.
To hit the nail on the head, yes although you may be thankful for a certain blessing, God may choose to take it away temporarily or permanently for an even GREATER BLESSING!
Lol, yes honey that was your point :). And I was very touched with the point about thankfulness being the first step - it breaks the devices of Satan and only then does God's light emerge. Amen+
Hey Amy ... it's Meena (lol Australia Meena from back in Dubai) first let me tell ya that I love your blog I always read it whenever you have something new up and seriously I think that a lot of your entries are precious diamonds, especially those about God's will in our lives and how His ways unfold. It's so true, most of the time we can't logically accept God's solution in our lives, and so we live in frustration and always have a sense of being lost. Once His plan unravels the way He wants it to, though, it's more than we think we know. We wonder about the reasons for His will, but no matter how long it takes He shows us these reasons day after day. Sometimes we are hit in what we think is the most precious thing in our lives, and we cry endless tears of sorrow over lost causes. If we keep our heads down the melancholy doesn't leave, beacause our eyes are still on the ground and on this world which can never fulfill us. So we look up towards the Lord and surrender our wills, and He takes our little hands through the road He has prepared - sometimes it's a little unusual and sometimes it doesn't make sense, but with Him by our side it's always a beautiful path no matter what we're going through. My two cents: Our Lord - a strangely amazing God.
Anywayz :P
God bless
Meena
Meena, what a small world. I was really touched with your comments -for a while there I thought my blog was dead :). Your post took the words right out of my mouth - couldn't have been written more comprehensively nor precisely. God Bless +
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