Emphasis Preaching Journal

I made a retreat to a monastery years ago and visited a monk who was making pottery. I still have one of his pieces as a reminder. He hardly left his room, so when he got up from his bed his potter's wheel was right there. Sometimes he made mistakes and crushed the clay and started over again, so when he made a good one he treated it carefully.

We are like clay in the hands of the Lord, and if we get messed up at some point he starts over again. I can't even think how often the Lord had to reform me on his potter's wheel. One time I wanted to be great scientist and then a great actor, then a teacher, then a salesman, then a film producer, and then a pastor by the time I was 30 -- then almost 50 years later a missionary! The Lord had to do a lot of reshaping of my clay, but even now I feel subtle changes every day in my retirement. How many have had the same dream for their life from the beginning? In my ministry I have never found any whom the Lord did not have to do a bit of work on at his potter's wheel!

The Lord is forming us and our whole nation. Our duty is to let him form us as he wills. If we resist him and his efforts to reform us, we will be lost. He may throw out our clay and start over with someone else (or some other nation). Our only option is to repent if we don't want to be uprooted and torn down.

It sounds menacing when this passage says that the Lord is planning a disaster for us. It sounds like we had better watch our steps. It also sounds like we had better make sure our nation also turns from evil! We spend a lot of time arguing over what is evil today. Why don't we ask him to tell us before it is too late -- or at least check his Book to find out!