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Yet, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay,
and you are our potter; . Is 64:8
There is a
television commercial that zooms in on the hands
of a potter and her foot on the pedal controlling
the potter's wheel. The wet clay oozes between her
fingers as she shapes her creation. A somewhat
demented expression of ecstasy settles across her
face.
But the ecstatic
visage is as a result of daydreaming about putting
a sporty car through its paces on an open road. As
the potter melts deeper into her dream and her
ecstasy, she treads harder on the pedal, causing
the potting wheel to accelerate and the clay in
her hands to deform and be flung around the room.
The commercial
brings to mind the passage from Isaiah offering
the image of God as potter and we as clay. But, do
you ever feel like the world is the out-of-control
wheel flinging the fragile clay that is your life
about the studio?
While life may feel
like this at times, it isn't a result of God
running amuck in the studio. That is not God's
nature. No, when life feels as flung about as the
potter's clay, it is more than likely that our
hands have replaced God's gentle but firm caress
of the matter of our life. Our replacement of a
focus on God's purposes with a view to
self-indulgence has sent the wheel out of
control.
Consider Jeremiah
29:11 "For I know the plans that I have for you,
plans for your good and not for your harm, to give
you a future with hope." THAT is God's nature.
When we trust his plan the outcome is always the
best that it could be. When we put careless hands
to the clay of our lives, or when we decide that
we know better than God, we become poor stewards
of the multitude of blessings with which God
graces us. Then the potter's clay is flung about
in chaos, not through God's doing, but through our
careless stewardship of his blessing.
It comes down to
making a choice. Decision permeates stewardship.
In order for our stewardship to matter, in order
for our love of and faithfulness to God to matter,
we have to have the freedom to chose whether or
not to express that love through our stewardship.
Without that freedom, there would be no love
involved, just blind obedience.
Theologian Karl
Barth explains this concept in "The Humanity of
God- The Gift of Freedom." "The event of man's
freedom is the event of his thankfulness for the
gift, of his sense of responsibility as a
receiver, of his loving care of what is given him.
It is his reverence before the free God who
accepts him as His partner without relinquishing
His sovereignty. This event alone is the event of
freedom."
One of God's great
gifts to us is the freedom to choose whether or
not to love and be faithful to him. We are truly
free when we chose to follow him. We are truly
free when we dedicate all that we have to bringing
glory to God. We are enslaved by sin when we chose
what we mistakenly think is freedom; doing it our
way. How we use God’s gracious provision reflects
how fully we understand where our freedom truly
lies. That is stewardship. |
