The Treasure in Earthen Vessels

Two weeks ago, I was asked by a friend at church if I would like to write something and share it at an upcoming worship night. The theme for the evening was communion in suffering.

I put some things together that God has been teaching me lately, and sent it off to the organizer. It was of a more reflectional, cognitive nature: About how my frequent response to suffering (“I don’t deserve this!”) reveals my heart idolatry. How Jesus is the only human who never deserved to suffer anything, and yet He suffered everything for the glory before Him and for us. How suffering can lead us to worship and to reveal God’s glory in our weakness.

The organizer came back to me asking if I could have some sort of illustration to follow through the piece from beginning to end….something a bit more on the creative side.

So I gave it some thought….and the next day I was reminded of something a friend had told me about the week before: Kintsugi. A Japanese art form in which broken pottery is repaired with golden seams. Some late-night research/online orders, a shopping trip, a couple practice runs, and a few days later, the worship night arrived and I attempted to demonstrate what I had learned. Attempted being the key word—unsurprisingly it didn’t work out quite as well as I had hoped!

But the flaws in my presentation don’t change the object lesson….so here it is!

For those of you who were at the worship night last year, you might remember Adria’s video about the process of making pottery items. Scripture compares us to clay in the hands of God, the Potter.

When I was a child, I loved making numerous small pots out of mud. I would wait for them to dry and then play with them. But if left outside in a rainstorm, my collection would turn right back into mud.

God uses the furnace of refinement in our lives to make us stronger. But oftentimes that’s not the end of the story.

These are bowls that have gone through some kind of refining process. They are strong and useful. They have their own style and beauty.

But in most of our lives, at some point suffering will come along. There are innumerable examples of suffering in our lives. This may be a health crisis or a long illness. It may be betrayal by a friend. It could be the death of a loved one.

{After saying each of those things, I gave a small black bowl a smash with the hammer. As I had suspected ahead of time, my nerves meant that I really took it out on the poor little thing!} 

Sometimes, that suffering breaks our hearts, seemingly destroying any possibility of future usefulness in our lives. But when we feel broken beyond repair, God never discards us. He sees us. He holds us.

In traditional Kintsugi, the pottery had been broken by accident. {In fact, from my reading, people who purposely broke pottery in order to use it in Kintsugi were criticized!!} But we know that with our God, there are no accidents. And He has a promise for us, in Romans 8:28:

“We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

Even the things that seem to be the end of the world are for our good. And so God sets about to redeem the brokenness in our lives.

God promised Israel, “So I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten…My great army which I sent among you” (Joel 2:25).

God said, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine” (Isaiah 43:1).

Now this process doesn’t happen immediately!! It takes great patience. I had to hold the piece in place and WAIT for the glue to set. And even when I set one section aside, it’s not because I’m rejecting it! It’s because it needs more time to strengthen that bond before I add the next piece.

The bowl from Friday, in the reconstruction process.

Just because God repairs us doesn’t mean that we go back to exactly how we were before! Wounds leave scars. But as God puts us back together, His redemption shows through in our lives. God uses the suffering that came to reveal the excellence of HIS glory in our weakness. 

2 Corinthians 4 talks about the idea of how we should not lose heart in times of hardship, because God is at work! This is summed up in verses 6 and 7:

“For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”

God is the power. HE is the treasure that we carry in earthen vessels. And through the suffering which He allows into our lives, HIS glory can shine forth brightly.

My first two practice attempts are in the back – the small one in front is #3 and it definitely turned out the best so far!

So that is what I shared!

During the demonstration, though, I failed to even glue two pieces together—because of the overly-smashed condition and my nerves, I didn’t even pick two matching pieces! :O Because of that, during the rest of the evening the epoxy hardened on the two pieces I had tried to match up. Thankfully I realized they weren’t really a match, so they weren’t connected—but they still had dried epoxy where a new seam would have to go. So after getting home I set to work cutting off the epoxy.

It made me think about how sometimes (often times), God has to carve away parts of us that are unhealthy or sinful. It’s never ever a fun process, and usually not a quick one either! And even when I think the job is done, usually some more crud shows back up later and the pruning process must continue, as was the case in cleaning these two pieces from my mistake.

Of course, in both the demonstration and in real life, it’s the human causing trouble! My impatience means that unlike these inanimate pieces of pottery, I squirm and wiggle as God works to put my broken heart back together. As the hands on the illustration side, it is I who am impatient in waiting for the glue to set, sometimes preventing pieces from joining well together. The one in the video was quick & easy and set well, but the next pieces I put together this morning took three attempts, two failures and the cleaning off of the still-wet glue which followed.

It was tempting to say, “this one is too badly broken – it can’t be redeemed.” But God never does that with us, and so I persevered. And eventually, the two large pieces were successfully joined with gold {the literal meaning of “kintsugi”!}

But after they were well set I was looking at which piece to do next. And I realized that the bottom piece no longer wants to fit perfectly where it was before. Either the epoxy spread the two bottom pieces to be wider than originally, or somewhere else the angle is just slightly wrong…. So out came the knife again, this time scraping away at the pottery itself.

Now the fit is better, and so tomorrow or the next day this piece will be glued in and the process will continue. And just as our loving heavenly Father never gives up on redeeming our beauty into ashes, so I won’t give up on this little bowl.

11/26 Update: A couple days ago I finished the bowl! Here are final shots of the repaired bowl I had broken at the worship night.

{Don't} Let Fear Paralyze You

While I was in college, I was a contributor to a blog—started by Moody Publishing for millennials—for about a year. The blog ended up changing its name and web address, and eventually the old domain expired…so the posts I authored now exist only on my computer [yes, I keep *everything*!!]. But occasionally I will be reminded of something I wrote and go back and look at it.

That happened recently with a post that was originally published on Thrive80 in April of 2012. The editor team had asked us to contribute posts about hypothetical ways to ruin your life before the age of 30. Below is what I wrote – with a current postscript at the end! :D It’s a message that spoke to my heart again today, even though I’m now in a different stage of life than I was as a 2^nd semester junior.

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There are so many options available of what we can do with our lives.  This is especially true for our generation.  We have grown up in a world where travelling to another country is something that is not all that unusual, where we are told that we can be whatever we want to be.

Boys and girls both have increasingly equal chances to pursue whatever course they desire in their lives.  Our current president has demonstrated that the color of one’s skin can no longer effectively bar one from even the highest office in the land. [Remember this was originally written in 2012!] Freed from the constraints of comparative financial and physical limitations, the vast majority of our generation of Americans is free to chase and reach their dreams.

But there is one thing that can quickly and easily destroy any chance we have of achieving our goals:

FEAR

The fear of not making the right choice.  The fear of things not working out the way I want them to.  The fear that no matter how hard I try, it won’t be good enough.  The fear that God’s plan will be different than mine and ruin what I seek.

Such fear can paralyze us, preventing us from doing anything productive.  It can wrap its chains around our hearts and weigh us down.  Allowing this fear to overtake us is exactly what the enemy would love to see.  When Christians are bound by fear, they will not take the risks or chances that could lead them to victory in their lives or to bring God glory.

Not giving fear a foothold in my life is something I have been learning a lot about both last summer and this month.  As a person who wants people to like me and who wants to always make exactly the right choices, I can tend to hesitate too long in doing something important with my life – fearing rejection, fearing the unknown. 

But God does not call us to fear.  He calls us to hope and trust.  He calls us to live with our all on the line, to pursue Him whole-heartedly no matter what might happen.  It is then that He will gladly pour out His blessings on us and give us the desires of our hearts (Ps. 37:4, 1 Pet. 5:6-7).

Last summer, God kept bringing me back to the verse in 1 John which tells us that perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment (4:18).  There is no reason for us to fear the future, because God loves us.  When we do fear, it is a signal that we are not yet fully willing to trust God with all that we are.  And yet, because He loves us so much, He consistently and patiently points us back to Him.  “Trust Me, My child,” He whispers, “I love you more than you can even love yourself.”

Earlier this month, I was in a place of inner turmoil and doubt.  There was something I sensed God was calling me to, but everything within me was frightened of what would happen if I did it.  On Good Friday, I was able to spend a large chunk of time outside, away from the distractions of everyday life.  In that time, God used the feelings I was struggling with to bring me back to this idea of fear.  He did this through a part of Scripture I had memorized years ago.

In James 4:13-16, the author is criticizing people who go to the opposite extreme of the problem I am talking about here.  Those folks assume that they do know exactly what will happen.  They make plans and are overly confident that they will achieve their goals.  James reminds his readers that the fact is that we don’t know what will happen.  Our life is a vapor.  “Instead,” he concludes, “you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’”

He is calling these people to live their lives in a manner which is surrendered to God’s plan for their lives.  He is calling them to trust.  But an important point here is that James does not say we should walk around in fear.  [Neither does he] say “Sit still in your house until you know exactly what it is God has planned for you to do because otherwise you will be a failure.”  No!  Rather, he is simply cautioning that while we can make our plans, we should not presumptuously assume that things will come out just as we expect.

James then turns and equally chastises the people who are too bound by fear.  “Therefore,” he writes, “to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (4:17).  God does allow us a level of free will!  I’m not going to try to debate this large theological issue, but suffice it to say I do not believe in a deterministic view of God’s sovereignty.  I believe He leaves room for human choice and plans.

James’ last verse here is telling us to do what we know we should.  Follow through on applying for that job, even if you’re not sure how it will work out.  Try to make friends with that person you see sitting alone, despite the fact they may choose to ignore you.  Love freely, as you have been loved – even when that can open you up to hurt and disappointment.

Thinking through this passage in James brought me back to something that has been a recurring theme of my college career: that life issues rarely fit into neat categories.  Instead, as Aristotle’s theory of the golden mean describes, the ideal course of action typically lies in finding a balance between two extreme responses.  As I tweeted shortly after my time of reflection, “I am called to trust - not to either fear that God may change my plans, nor to presume that He will not.”

And so, my friends, there is one word that can prevent you from letting fear ruin your life and paralyze you.  It may be a simple word, but the concept is deep – one which God has been slowly developing in my life for months:

TRUST

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Interestingly, God has continued to use that passage from James in my life, without me consciously remembering this post I wrote. In October of 2015, I was praying about whether God would have me commit to coming back to Uganda after my initial 14-month stint as staff was over. Again, I was out in nature spending time communing with Him. And as I prayed, He gave me those same verses in James.

And so they’ve stayed in the back of my mind – as I said that yes, I would return to Uganda. As I renewed my work permit in early 2016 for two years. As I think about the future now. Those are the verses that my mind goes back to. I can make my plans, but God may change them at any time. And yes, that’s scary—IF I forget how faithful and trustworthy God is. IF I ignore the fact that He knows things I can’t even imagine. IF I don’t remember that His purposes are perfect.

The word that is the call to my heart is still the same now as it was five years ago:

TRUST.

Two Sabbath Healings

At our church here in Kasana, our pastors are preaching through the book of John. This past Sunday we were looking at the story of the man healed by the pool of Bethesda, from the first part of chapter 5.

The preacher reminded us that we must watch out for false religion, which makes us feel comfortable but actually fails to give glory & praise to God when He works in our lives.

Later in the afternoon, I spent some time journaling & reflecting, and the Holy Spirit helped me draw a contrast/see a lesson by comparing this man in John 5 and the blind man in John 9.

On Sunday morning, the Holy Spirit stopped me in the middle of a funk mood when the preacher was reading the passage, before he had ever spoken a word of his sermon. It was verses 6 & 7 that caught me: Jesus asks this man who had been an invalid for 38 years, “Do you want to be made well?” And his answer? “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

Sitting there in church, I could suddenly see that too often I’m like that man. I want some person or some physical situation to provide the setting for healing. I want it to seem momentous.

What this man didn’t know was that The Healer was asking him this question. Jesus simply said the words, “Rise, take up your bed and walk” – and immediately this man did! After THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS. [I haven’t even been alive that long yet!!!]

But, Jesus had done a big no-no! It was the Sabbath day when He did this! And so when the Jews found this man carrying his bed, they scolded him soundly. But the man didn’t know who had healed him. Then Jesus found him in the temple, and said “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” (vs. 14)

And what did the man do? Worship the one who had made him well? No, he went back to the leaders and told them it was Jesus who had healed him, and that made serious trouble for Jesus (vs. 16) – this is the first mention of the leaders wanting to kill Jesus!!!

Contrast that to the man in chapter 9.

In this case, the disciples start the conversation by asking Jesus “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus’ reply brought tears to my eyes & a catch in my voice yesterday afternoon: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him” (vs. 3).

Then Jesus made mud, “anointed” the blind man’s eyes, and sent him to the pool of Siloam to wash.

“So [the man] went and washed, and came back seeing.” As simple as that.

But again, it was the Sabbath day. And evidently spitting on the ground is work?? Because again, this man and Jesus got in trouble with the religious leaders of the Jews. This time there was almost a whole trial – they called the man’s parents and everything to make sure he had really been born blind. The parents hedged because of a threat from the Jews (vs. 19-23).

The formerly blind man shot straight though: “One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.” And so they excommunicated him. But Jesus came and found him (vs. 35-58):

            “Do you believe in the Son of God?” He asked him.

            “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?”

            “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.”

            “Lord, I believe!” And he worshipped Him.

Do you see the difference? A totally different response & attitude on the part of these two men!!

But really, which one had more reason to be bitter about the years of less-than-full life, or which had reason to boast for his role in the healing?

Jesus seems to imply that the man in John 5 was sick because of some sin he had committed (vs. 14). But the John 9 man is specifically cleared from any connection between the blindness and a sin.

The John 5 man did nothing to be made well – absolutely nothing – Jesus spoke the word, and he was healed. Whereas the man in John 9 is the one who washed the mud off. If he had wanted to, he could have argued that Jesus had made things worse by smearing spit & road dirt on his eyes. His eyes didn’t open immediately, only once the man himself had washed the mud off could he see.

But look at their responses.

The man who may have been sick because of his own doing but who did nothing to heal himself is the one who shows no indication of saving belief, who instead went and ratted to the religious leaders.

But the one who was innocent of sin connected to his blindness, and who worked (in a small way) to bring about his own healing? He is the one who stood up to the religious leaders and defended Jesus’ righteousness (vs. 17, 30-33), and who worshipped & believed Jesus when he saw Him again.

Our preacher on Sunday pointed out that the John 5 man’s faith & trust were in the angel, a moving of the water, and in his own ability to get into that water first.

The man in John 9 also had faith – but it was the simple faith of hearing & obeying the instructions he was given. He somehow knew it was Jesus (vs. 11), though we don’t know how much he knew about Him. Maybe he had heard about Jesus & already believed His claim to be the Son of God. We aren’t told that, but from his fruit we can see that his faith had the right focus.

I don’t want to be like the man in John 5. I want to be more like the one of John 9.

But all too often, it’s too easy to be stuck in misplaced trust, or in the ensnarement of false religion.

May the Lord continue to heal & purify my heart!!!!