I am not a potter, but this past year, I was able to experience what it was like to literally put my sweat and blood into a tiny little clay bowl when my fiancé and I went to a class together. I messed up at least 2 times and had to throw the used clay back in the bucket. This bucket didn’t hold clay to be tossed out, but to be used again for another time. The reason I had to put the clay back into the bucket was that I am an amateur. I am not a potter.
In the Christian life, we are clay and God is our potter and He is not an amateur.
But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Isaiah 64: 8
In the past 72 hours, God has been doing some deep work in my heart. 4,320 minutes of heart-wrenching pain and joy. In those hours, I’ve gone to marriage counseling with my best friend and have been shown some of my deepest struggles and in turn had to ask forgiveness from the one I love the most here on earth and pray that God would change me to be more like Jesus. I’ve sat in a beautiful room listening to two friends joyfully give of their talents while giving testimony to the goodness of God through their pain and sorrow. I’ve received the message that two close friends have become new parents to a beautiful baby girl. I’ve talked with a mom whose child is going through physical difficulties. I’ve been to a work luncheon where I heard testimonies of women who have been set free from the bondage of life on the streets where I live. Today, I received the message that a sweet friend and mentor has gone home to be with her Savior.
This life is momentary and can change in a moment’s notice…in 4,320 minutes.
Yet, none of this is about me or even the people mentioned. It is about who it is that has His mighty hand in the making of this very small window of life, death, joy and pain. It is about God and we can praise Him in the midst of the pain in life because He has made a way for it all to end.
Do you realize that it was good that God forbade Adam and Eve from going back into the Garden of Eden once they fell? You see, once Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, sin entered the world. If God had allowed them to eat from the Tree of Life they would still be here…stuck in their everlasting pit of sin.
“Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—’ therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”
Genesis 3:22-24
Despite the initial thoughts that come into our mind when we think of banishment, God was kind and merciful to send them out so that one day…they could die.
Not only did God provide a way out of eternity in our filthiness and broken relationship with Him, but He provided a way for us to have eternal life with Him free from sin and sadness with a new body and a restored relationship with Him.
Life can change in a minute, but that change can be an everlasting one.
“ For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:17-18
Beyond the Road Less Traveled 