Disappointment – December 4, 2020

I’m writing this on Thursday, December 3, the morning I moved my office home because I’m getting to quarantine.  I’m also getting to miss out on preaching my dear friend Glenn Hayden’s funeral service, on Saturday (and Monday).  I’m getting to delay, possibly into 2021, preaching my second favorite verse in 1 John.  And I’m so looking forward to potentially driving my wife insane with my stir-craziness.   

“Pastor Scott, aren’t you a little let down that God allowed this? After all, He holds all of us in His mighty hands.”

Truth is, I’m human, and as a human I want to be able to blame someone!  I want to be able to shake my fist at that sky…. But I’ve lived a little AND been blessed to have been immersed in the Word most of my life.  If the urge to blame starts to tempt me, I hear the words:

WHO ARE YOU, O POT?

The metaphor of God as Potter and us as clay is only used a few times in Scripture (most notably in Isaiah 29:16; 45:9; 64:8; and Romans 9:21), but it’s been captured in story and drama so much that most of us have that mental picture of clay being smashed down and reformed.  My boys are both artists in that sense. One worked clay in a corner of our basement, so I got to see firsthand how little say a lump of clay has in what it becomes.  And now there is a wood-turning lathe set up in that same corner and my other son turns out beautiful pieces that look nothing like the original blocks of wood AND leaves huge piles of sawdust that is cut from said wood.

I say all that, not because you don’t know anything about woodcarving, but to remind us that you and I are predestined to be conformed (shaped) into the image of His Son.  And like the clay pottery, we might have to be spun and thrown down spun over and over again throughout our threescore and ten years of life, or we might be like the wood shaved and planed and sanded and polished, over and over… because each layer of “self” that comes off reveals another layer of “self” that needs work.  At least that’s my truth.  So if He needs me to sit on my hands for a few weeks, He’s the Potter. Whiny clay isn’t even a thing.

That said, Jesus was in the Potter’s hands for 33 years.  He knows.  He cares.  We don’t slog through this life alone. EVER!

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let’s hold firmly to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of our need.       

Hebrews 4:14-16

Forever in His Grip,

Pastor Scott