Solitude with the Father

Finally, it was time to learn the throwing wheel (potter’s wheel) in class.  Let me just say up front – it’s not as easy as it looks.

As the professor showed us a demonstration, he made an interesting comment.  “The hands are strong, but it requires a gentle touch. Let your body guide the hands, in what they‘re doing.”  He went on to say “That one’s arms rest on the knees and the body is the one that leans into the clay.”

God is mentioned as the potter in Scripture. (Isaiah  64:8) He has all-surpassing power, yet when he molds me, His touch is gentle.

My life can turn at a dizzying pace like the throwing wheel.  I don’t even know which end is up, half the time.  There are times when I feel like the Potter is crushing me yet never once does He take me down to my original state.

What feels like crushing pressure is His body moving toward me to grow me.  There has to be some pressure to change the clay. It’s my faith and trust that is being pulled and stretched.

There are times when I made a bad decision, and I become wobbly and off center.  The Potter then pushes down ever so slightly to get me centered again.  Never so much as to become flat and unworkable or in a sense of losing salvation, but enough for me to get back on track, in order to be molded.

I noticed over the past year there were times if He pressed any more I felt would be flattened. I’ve said, “I can’t take anymore.”  However, the pressure continued.  His hands are always in contact with the clay.  Every so often, He uses His Spirit (water) to soften me up a little, because I’m too dry to work with. Then suddenly I find myself being pulled up straight, sensing the growth that was occurring.  A vessel was emerging, a beautiful vessel.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”

   2 Corinthians  4:7-10 (NIV 84)