Joyful Transformation

This morning I am thinking about clay. Sometimes when I think about clay I am actually thinking about Play Dough, which I don’t think is really clay but it is a derivative, but today I am thinking about real clay. Do you remember the first verse of the song Have Thine Own Way? (Does it surprise you that spell check does not know the word “thine”.)

Last night my mother was telling me of an incident with my aunt who is now in the nursing home. She was concerned over whether she could receive forgiveness for sometimes missing church when maybe they really could have been there. This conversation broke my heart. How do people spend 60 to 70 years in church and still not know their Father?

I think it is clay. The church they were part of decided they had it all right. God had formed them into the perfect infallible church. They had set guide lines and rules and really all you had to do was follow these in the right building and by all means be at every meeting and you will be formed in God’s will. This had to be right, every verse of the Bible had been analyzed over and over and the rules were clear! So the only thing left to do was fire this clay. Of course then it becomes a beautiful vessel, shiny and perfected by the fire. But now this vessel if very fragile, a few broken rules could shatter it to pieces. How could it be put back together again?

Clay is the most appealing when it stays soft and malleable. Rules were the hang up of the Pharisees. Grace was the gift of Christ. What is grace but the ability of God to squash us out flat when we mess up and make us beautiful again? I want to be continually formed by God. I want my mind and my heart to be open to all of the ways he can shape me into a better servant of his.

Lord, help me to be soft and yielding to your will. Help me to know you and to strive every day to please you. Help me to always be open to your leading and be the person that you would have me to be.