SS Thoughts 42: #Broken Vessels

Pottery making is an art—one that I’ve yet to learn!! I’m informed that creating a beautiful piece of pottery involves many steps, e.g. selecting the right type of clay, aging the clay – “until it stinks”, kneading, shaping, firing (baking), and then glazing the final object.¹ If after all of this harsh treatment, the vessel has not cracked or been marred, then it is ready to be used in whatever manner it was created for.

But sometimes a previously perfect piece of pottery can break while being used. It takes a Master Potter to restore it to its original form – sometimes even better than it was in the first place!!

  

God Himself is the Master Potter and we are merely the clay to be formed into the design He has chosen. "O Lord, you are our father. We are the clay; you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand" (Isa. 64:8 NIV).

Jesus as a potter is a beautiful image that reminds us of His tender care for our wellbeing. Just as a potter can reshape a dented vessel into something beautiful again, Jesus can reshape our broken lives – to being virtually without spot or blemish. He has also promised to restore this earth into a beautiful place where we will live with Him, or better still, where He will live with us! It is good to know that we are in the hands of a loving Potter who wants to have a close relationship with His human vessels.²

Perhaps we can regard our trials on this earth as the heating in the fire that will make us ready to be used by Him. May my perspective always be that my small bruises can never compare to His innocent body being broken, and His blood spilled out, for MY sins. Won’t YOU submit to His kneading and reshaping in YOUR life?

¹Good News Magazine  Oct-Nov 1980 Vol. XXVII, No. 9  ISSN 0432-0816}

²Teacher’s Comments - Adult SS Lessons Oct 24-30 2015

I really like this song “Broken And Spilled Out": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFYoQ-8Mpx8”

I like this one too - shared on my FB post - "A Potter and His Clay" by Wintley Phipps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIatZcknct4&feature=youtu.be

[Got up this morning and felt impelled to do a little writing]

SS Thoughts #41: Washed and Made New

I believe the phrase “water off a duck’s back” is familiar to most persons. It alludes to the ability of birds to shake water from their feathers. It also reminds us to let the mean, discouraging things that people say, slide off us—like water off a duck’s back.

Facilitating my students’ constructive grasp of knowledge about pollution in general, and marine pollution in particular, made me reflect that it is not so easy to shake off dirt anymore! Sometimes as seabirds dive, it is impossible for them to get the oil or other garbage off their feathers when they resurface.

Oftentimes, the birds have to be rescued and washed—over and over again—in order to remove oil from their feathers and from their mouths. Otherwise they will die, e.g. from hypothermia, inability to fly, or swallowing the oil. But they are not washed with just anything. The best cleaner appears to be Dawn dishwashing liquid – the original brand!!

Thinking about seabirds and their oil predicament, reminds me of our own situation on earth. Living on this earth leaves us covered over with the ugliness of sin—and the only thing that can clean us up, and save us from death, is being washed in the blood of Jesus, 1 John 1:7. Jesus has offered to wash us..... He does it gently, but thoroughly—in His blood that was shed just once, on Calvary, for the remission of our sins. Thus we are fitted to live on a new earth that He will also recreate. 

Won’t you allow Him to wash you and clean you? 

Won’t you accept His offer of eternal life on that new earth?

SS Thoughts #40: Love Like The Sun

(Adapted from SS Remarks 01/05/2013, and from John Marks Templeton: Discovering the Laws of Life. 1995. The Continuum Publishing Company)

The words of this hymn touched me. This is verse 3.

“Breathe on me, Breath of God,

Till I am wholly Thine,

Until this earthly part of me

Glows with Thy fire divine”

            (Hymn #265 – SDA Hymnal)

[A footnote: Thinking about taking a break from writing this blog…… Heavy workload. Sorry]


An addendum - Nov. 10 2015

I read this beautiful verse of scripture this morning. It is so apropos of the theme of the post, I thought I would share it:

"And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then YOUR light will rise in the darkness, and YOUR night will become like the noonday”.

(Isaiah 58:10, NIV)

Wonderful!!!