Have you ever wondered what it would be like to
get a message from God?
Maybe some of you have gotten messages from God.
There are times when I’ve thought I have.
Now, I’ve never heard a voice thundering from heaven, the way it happens
in the movies. But there have been times when I thought God was giving me
a message in one way or another.
Because that’s the thing. God has all kinds of ways
of giving us messages. Sometimes it can be a voice, either an external
voice or a voice inside our heads. Sometimes it can be an inner feeling,
a sense that God’s Holy Spirit is prompting us to do something. Sometimes
God uses other people to give us a message.
God’s ways of giving us messages are limited only by God’s creativity,
and God’s creativity is completely unlimited. So God can give us a
message in any way God chooses. And it’s
up to us to be alert and recognize the message God gives us.
In our reading for today, God has a message for
Jeremiah. Now, God had given Jeremiah messages before. God had spoken directly to Jeremiah.
But this time, God says, I don’t want to just use words to give you my message. I want to give you a demonstration. So
go down to the potter’s house.
Now, the potter’s house was simply the place where someone,
a potter, created pottery. Pots, cups, bowls, whatever. Have you ever watched a potter at work? If not in person, you may have seen a video
someplace. It’s really pretty fascinating. They start out with just this blob of
clay. It does not look like
anything. And they work with it, and
they put it on a wheel, and they spin the wheel, and they shape it, and they
keep working with it, and eventually this formless lump of clay becomes
something useful. And in fact, sometimes, it becomes something beautiful.
God sends Jeremiah down to watch the potter at work.
And God says to Jeremiah, here’s the deal.
The potter, that’s Me. The clay, that’s the people of Israel. So what you need to know, and what you need
to make sure the people of Israel know, is that I can make of the people of
Israel anything I choose to, because I’m God.
Now God gave this message to Jeremiah as a warning to the
people of Israel. The people of Israel had come to think of themselves as
God’s Chosen People. And there was truth
in that, but they had come to believe that this meant they could do no
wrong. They thought that they could do anything they wanted, that God
would protect them no matter what, because they were God’s Chosen People. God wanted to remind them that God was not
obligated to protect them no matter what. They would only be God’s Chosen
People if they continued to honor God and follow God. If they abandoned God, God would be free to
choose someone else. God had created
them, just as a potter creates something out of clay, and God could destroy
them if God chose.
But as I was thinking about this passage this week, it
seems to me that there are message for us that go beyond that. This
analogy of God to a potter and to us as the clay works on at least a couple
more levels for us.
For one thing, it reminds us that God is the Creator.
Just like a potter has a plan for what he’s going to create when he starts
creating, God has a plan when God creates each of us. God knows what it
is that God wants each one of us to be.
And as we go through our lives, God keeps working on us. God keeps molding us, keeps shaping us. God
keeps working to make us into what God had in mind for us to be when God
created us.
Now, of course, the analogy breaks down a little bit,
because the clay has no power to resist what the potter does. You and I
do have the power to resist God. Now
don’t take that the wrong way. You and I
are not more powerful than God. But God allows us to resist God if we so
choose. God will keep working with
us. God will keep trying to mold us and
shape us. Even when we’ve gotten all wobbly and unsightly, God will keep
trying to bring us back to what God wants us to be. But, unlike the potter with the clay, God
refuses to force us. God will allow us to resist if that’s what we choose
to do.
But there’s one other thing about God being the potter and
us being the clay. A potter is a skilled craftsman. And one of the things that’s fascinating
about watching a potter at work is that no two pieces of pottery are exactly
alike. They may be similar, but they are not the same. And in fact, the potter does not even have
the goal of making two pieces of pottery that are exactly alike. The potter wants each piece of pottery to be
different and special and unique. The potter sees the differences even
when the lumps of clay are still just lumps of clay. To you and me, a lump of clay just looks like
a lump of clay. But not to a master
craftsman like a potter. To a master
potter, each lump of clay looks a little bit different.
A potter can look at that lump
of clay and see things in it that no one else can see. The potter knows
things about that lump of clay that no one else knows. And before the potter even starts to work on
it, the potter can see exactly what that lump of clay should be. All of
the ways it’s the same as the others, and all of the ways it’s different. All the things that make that lump of clay
unique. And all the time the potter is
working on that lump of clay, all the time the potter is shaping it and molding
it, the potter keeps that vision in mind.
That’s how it is with us and
God. God never creates any two people to be the same. We may be
similar in some ways, but no two people are exactly the same. God does
not want us to be the same. God wants
each of us to different and special and unique. After all, God had told
Jeremiah earlier, at Jeremiah Chapter One Verse Five, “Before I formed you in
the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a
prophet to the nations.”
God had a plan for Jeremiah
before Jeremiah was even conceived. Before Jeremiah was even beginning to
be formed in the womb, God saw exactly what Jeremiah should be. God saw
all the ways Jeremiah would be like everyone else, but God also saw the ways
Jeremiah would be different. And all through Jeremiah’s life, as God was
molding and shaping Jeremiah, God kept that vision in mind, so that Jeremiah
could be what God had planned him to be.
God has a plan for you,
too. And God has a plan for me.
Before any of us was even formed in the womb, God had a plan for each of
us. God sees all the ways were like other people, but God also sees all
the ways were different. And all through
our lives, as God molds us and shapes us, God keeps that vision in mind, so we
can be what God has planned us to be.
Now, that all sounds really
good. But here’s the question: do
you believe it?
Take a look at your life.
Can you see God at work? Can you see God
molding you and shaping you? Can you see God working to make you into the
person God has planned you to be? Can you see that your life is following
God’s plan? Do you even believe that God
has a plan for your life?
As I look at my life, there
have been times when I thought God was at work in my life, and there have been times
when I did not. I can tell you that it’s a lot easier for me to see God’s
plan for my life now, when I’m sixty, than it was when I was sixteen, or when I
was twenty-six, or even when I was forty-six. There have been plenty of
times when I wondered what God was doing in my life, or if God was even doing
anything at all. I can look back on it
now, now that I’ve seen how some of the things I was dealing with turned out,
and see that God was at work, that God was still molding me and shaping
me. I can see it now, but I often could not see it at the time.
If that’s you, I want to
encourage you to hang in there. Spend some time in prayer. Try to stay alert and see if God might be
giving you a message in some way. But until you get that message, don’t
give up. Keep doing the best you can to
love God and to follow God and to serve God. Be patient. God is often at work in ways we don’t realize
at the time. Keep trying, keep praying,
and don’t give up on God.
But here’s the other
thing. It’s true that, at age sixty, I’ve been able to see how some
things have turned out. But not all of them. There are things that have not turned out
yet. God is still at work on me.
God is still molding me and shaping me.
God is not finished with me yet.
And God is not finished with you yet, either. God continues to
work on us all our lives.
For over twenty years, I was a
lawyer. For about thirteen years now, I’ve been a pastor. Does God
have something else in mind for me? I don’t
know. There’s nothing else in my plan.
But there may be something else in God’s plan. The one thing I
know is that as long as we’re here on this earth, God has reasons for us to be
here. God never stops molding us and shaping us as long as we’re here.
I asked you to take a look at
your life. As you do, keep that in mind.
God is not finished with you yet. God is continuing to work on
you. Maybe you have something else in
your plan. Maybe you don’t. But
our plans are not what’s important.
God’s plans are. God is still
molding you and shaping you, and God will continue to do that as long as you’re
here on earth.
If there’s something else God
wants you to do, God will let you know. Be alert, so you can hear God’s
message when it comes. But if it does
not come, keep doing your best to serve God, to love God, and to stay faithful
to God. God knew you before you were even born. God knows everything you’ve done. God knows you now. And God will know you in the future. God created you to be special and unique, and
God has a special and unique plan for you and for your life. And God is
still working on you, so that you can be exactly who God has created you to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment