The Potter's Wheel

I have had good intentions to blog but really have not had the opportunity.  As I write I’m without internet, so I find myself wondering what was it that I last blogged about?  I recall blogging about a furlough meeting, but now I wonder, “Did I really blog that or just think I needed to.”  

Oh, well!  I guess I’ll find out when I get online again, and post this blog.  :-)

The Lord has really been working in my heart the past few weeks.  I do not always appreciate the pressure He has applies as He molds me into the image of Jesus Christ.  It is never easy to be thankful through trials, heartaches, fears, frustrations, and even the results or consequences of our own sin!  Is it?  

I wish I could even say that I am always thankful when He allows me a little glimpse of what He is making me to be.  I can say I’m thankful for His mercy, and lovingkindness as He patiently works with this often hardened lump of clay.  

As I have pondered the work of the Lord in my life and heart lately, the words of the song The Potter’s House have come to mind, almost daily.  I heard this song for the first time during a Sara’s Daughters couples retreat while we were at Ambassador.   

The sounds are so familiar I’ve heard them before

There’ve been days before today, I’ve walked through this same door.

The crushing of the hardened clay, the grinding of the wheel

And out behind the potter’s house there is always the field, always the field

The field is such a sad place all covered with gloom

The vessels who are thrown there n’er see flowers bloom

They fought against the potter and rejected His wheel

Now there’s no place left to put them but out in the field, out in the field.

Make me again precious Lord, I understand

That the Potter Who works with me, toils with nail scarred hands.

Here I am, take me Lord, place me on your wheel,

I’ll gladly stay inside the potter’s house, to stay out of his field, out of his field.

Thanks to the Lord, for taking us to Israel, I have a clear image of the potter’s field which sits outside the walls of the lower city of David.  It is a barren and worthless plot of land.  Nothing about it is appealing.  Sitting on a part of the field is the cliff where, tradition says, Judas Iscariot took his own life after betraying Jesus.  

It is such a sad place!  Why would we choose to be there, when we could sit at the Saviors feet and worship Him?  Why would we choose the hardships and pain of walking apart from Christ, with nothing to show for it afterwards but being thrown into the potter’s field; when we, instead, could choose to allow ourselves to be molded by the nail scarred hands of the One Who died for us?  I don’t know why we choose it, but sadly, we do.

As believers we need to make the choice, daily, or every moment, to place ourselves into the hands of Jesus.  We must yield our will to Him or we mar what Christ is attempting to make of us.  

Pliable.  Flexible.  Supple.  Yielded. Surrendered.  Submissive.  Compliant. Obedient.  Are all words that show us how we need to be on His wheel.   

Do you know that if you have not yet trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior you are walking apart from Him?  You have rejected His wheel and there is no place for you in Heaven.  What a shame it would be if you are reading this blog, as an unbeliever, to choose not to place your life into His hands by agreeing with God about your sin and asking His forgiveness!  Will you reject the free gift of salvation being held out to you right now?  Or will you believe that Christ died and rose again, conquering death... for you!!!

He wants to make a masterpiece out of us.  We merely need to trust Him as He molds and shapes us on His wheel.