God is the Potter…I am the Clay

I want to begin by saying that I am thankful that God is the potter and I am the clay. He already knows who I am and what I am to be/do…and He is the one who continually forms me into His image. That means that I don’t have to work and strive to become His image…I just have to be moldable and allow Him to shape me.

Jeremiah 1:5 tells me that before I was formed in my Mother’s womb, that God already knew me.

Psalms 139:13-16: You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside and my intricate outside, and wove them all together in my mother’s womb. I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex! Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking. It simply amazes me to think about it! How thoroughly you know me, Lord! You even formed every bone in my body when You created me in the secret place, carefully, skillfully shaping me from nothing to something. You saw who You created me to be before I became me! Before I’d ever seen the light of day, the number of days You planned for me were already recorded in Your book. (The Passion Translation)

There are several scriptures that talk about God as the potter and us as the clay. Jeremiah talks about the clay that the potter was working with didn’t turn out like he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. We also see where Isaiah asks if a clay pot argues with its maker or tells him that he is forming/shaping it wrong?

A month or so ago I took a pottery class. It was very interesting. Not one time did my lump of clay have any input in its creation. It just sat on the wheel and I determined the speed of the wheel, when I needed to add water (the clay would not mold without water), the amount of pressure I needed to apply, and how I wanted the finished product to be. I had to start over twice and both times I scraped the clay off the wheel and put it into a recycle pile to be used again and I would get a fresh lump of clay. My finished product didn’t look like what I wanted, but I am not a master potter. =)

Every day we are being molded and shaped into the image of God. God is the potter and we are the clay. The question is…how pliable are we?

Now to my blog post…haha!

This year has been an interesting year as you probably know from my posts. I think I find it hard to blog a lot of times because there is so much going on (in my mind, in my spirit, and in life) that I have a hard time deciding what to write about because if I were to try to write about it all it would be pages and pages. So I will try to break today’s post down as much as possible.

God has really been “molding” me this year. It started in January with my faith. Did I trust Him…like really trust Him? So, He began to allow external environments that would test my internal beliefs so that He could cut away what needed to be cut away and reshape and remold me in some areas that didn’t look exactly like He had planned. (We are created in His image (Genesis 1:27)

You know, trusting God is deep. When I say that I trust God and that I know that He has me and I am safe with Him no matter what my circumstance or situation…it also means that I trust that God knows what is best to expose my heart as David talks about in Psalms 139. It means that I am safe with Him when He shows me something that is not like Him and He wants to remove it. It means that I know that His correction is always for my good.

As I am writing this I just realized that God started in November of last year exposing what He has been working on this week in me. Haha…He is so funny! I honestly love God so much!!! I love how He so graciously loves us and molds us and will patiently tarry with us.

So…I have a neighbor above me that has a big dog and they have actually been a source of annoyance since we moved into the apartment. Nothing that wasn’t bearable, just mainly that they are really loud and it starts about 10:30 at night and goes through the night. When I would try to talk to her about it, she would act like she didn’t know what I was talking about…which would frustrate me more. Now I can see how the Lord has been using it to expose things in me (that are not His character) this whole time. Anyway, in November of last year, I noticed that she was letting her dog out on the patio to relieve himself and it was coming down onto my patio and furniture. I addressed this with her and with the front office. Then in December, it happened again. So I addressed it with the front office and this time I wanted something done about it. This didn’t go so well and continued into January of this year. I was very direct in my communication…matter of fact…past the point of being “nice”.  I had to finally go to corporate to get anything done. (This didn’t go over well with the front office people) So…that’s some history with the neighbor and the front office.

Now to my blog (I feel like a preacher that says, “I’m closing”, but then starts on something else.) Haha

This week…the external circumstances have been such that the internal fruit has been exposed. Some good…some not so good. (Here I go being real again.)

On Monday, I was out walking my dog. (She is 16 years old, weighs 19.5 pounds, half blind and even deafer, and doesn’t really interact with other dogs) A new neighbor came out as we were walking and she started talking to me and as we were talking, a young girl was walking a 60-pound Chow and a 60-pound Golden Retriever. She had them on a leash, but she could not control them and they drug her across the parking lot and went into full attack mode on Macy. I was horrified!!! Horrified!!! I was screaming at the top of my lungs as these two dogs were viciously attacking Macy. The young girl was unable to stop them or control them, for she was lying on the ground where she had fallen over them when they launched on Macy. Finally, Macy was able to escape and get under a truck before the Chow could get loose to go after her.

So I go to the office immediately after I get Macy home and check her out. I am traumatized…seriously! This was the most frightening thing that I think I’ve witnessed in a very long time.

So here we go…to the front office where I am ignored because the staff doesn’t really like me because I went to corporate with my last issue. I stand there and wait while they help others. Finally, a lady said she would be right back to help me as she walked down the hall and stayed…she stayed so long that one of the guys in the office left his people to come to me and see if he could help me. When he did, the lady down the hall yelled out and said, “I didn’t forget about her.”

At this point I am traumatized and irritated…not only do I want to address the attack that just happened, but I also want to address the way the “office staff” act towards me. (Here is some fruit showing) Anyway, the girl comes back up now, but I am talking to the guy and I tell him what has happened and he says to me, “If you can fill out an incident form, I will turn it in and we will see what steps we can take.” This was not what I wanted to hear!!! So I just said, “Yeah, ok.”, but I was kind of sarcastically laughing, rolling my eyes and turning my head all at the same time.

He called me on it…he asked me why I laughed and turned away. I told him that I just seem to have an issue with dogs here. Then I proceeded to talk to the girl and tell her that I didn’t like being talked about in the office, being ignored, etc. I took the form and came home.

Now, this external situation is controlling my emotions…not the Lord. I’m irritated because this has happened…the office isn’t handling it like I think they should (according to our contract), my dog is hurt and traumatized, I am traumatized, and I have spent an entire day dealing with this.

So Monday night, the Lord begins to deal with me about MY BEHAVIOR with the guy at the front office. He begins to show me how it did not re-present Jesus to him. I can’t sleep…I’m traumatized and the Lord is dealing with me.

So Tuesday, I fill out the form and take it to the office and I apologize to the guy. Genuinely apologize because I know that I was wrong in the way I acted. I get an email later where he had emailed the incident report to the office manager. I felt good about this. It was being handled in a timely manner…unlike the last incident.

Then I am awakened by my upstairs neighbor and her dog at about 4:30-5:00 am on Wednesday. Immediately I am so angry and these thoughts that are nowhere like my Daddy’s thoughts begin to form in my mind. Things I want to say to her and things I want to do. As soon as those thoughts are forming, the Lord begins to gently correct me, showing me His thoughts and ways. Then again Thursday morning I am awakened by my neighbor and her dog. I was immediately mad and these same thoughts appeared, but once again my Daddy brought correction. This has happened every night this week, but by Friday morning I was no longer immediately mad and having negative thoughts…I was a little frustrated, my thoughts were more God’s thoughts and I was able to go back to sleep. This morning I was awakened by them at 3:30. I wasn’t mad and didn’t have negative thoughts, but I couldn’t go back to sleep because there was so much going through my thoughts so I just got up.

Now the really real part. I know God’s thoughts towards my neighbor…they’re good! He has shown me that His thoughts about her should be my thoughts about her and that I should speak His words to her. My actions should be to bless her. My words should be to bless her.

Am I there yet? Am I at a place where I can speak God’s words about her to her? No…I’m not, but I no longer speak negative words about her. I no longer get mad when she and her dog wake me early in the morning hours. I no longer want to do things to make her life not so good. You see…He is molding me and shaping me right now. I am a work in progress. I am thankful for all that He has already been able to do in me. I hope before she moves out in May that I can honestly speak those words over her in love. That’s what my heart desires. I want to look like God in every way. I want to lay down my life and take up my cross. I want to love my enemies, love my neighbor as my self, and re-present Jesus to all that I come in contact with. I want my fruit to be so delicious when I’m squeezed that others want more…and are drawn to Jesus.

You see, this week He has shown me that there is some fruit in me that doesn’t taste very good and people won’t want to come back for more. He has shown me that when things don’t happen like I think they should…my fruit is not very tasty. He has shown me that there is still pride in my life and that fruit is not very tasty. It is this pride that keeps me from speaking God’s words to my neighbor. He has revealed things to me this week, but He has also healed some things this week. Where my fruit hasn’t been very tasty, he has had me go back to some areas with fresh fruit.

I’m still a vessel being molded, but as long as I continue to be pliable I will become the beautiful vessel He imagined me to be!

God cares so much more about our inside…our motives, our heart, our fruit…than he does our outside. If He can make us beautiful on the inside it will burst out to the outside.

Where do you need to allow God to cut away, squeeze, mold or re-shape? I encourage you to be pliable…give Him permission to make you into His image.

May we all be pliable clay in the Master Potter’s hand that we may become His beautiful creation.

Question: I am trying to learn to write for readers. I journal and I am very detailed in my journal entries. I know I cannot be as detailed in my writing for others because the entries would be way too long. So, I would love your honest feedback. 

1. Is this post too detailed? Is there some things that could have been left out and you still get the point?
2. Is this post too long?
3. Do you think there are things that could have been left out and other details added?
4. How could this post be better?

Any input you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and thank you in advance for any input you have. Have a wonderfully blessed day!