WATCHWORD:
Yet, Lord, you are our father. We are the clay, you are the Potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8.
My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. Psalm 27:8
Meditation:
A Glob of Clay?
I recently turned a certain age, plus one. I considered my life: I’m a scholarly sort, I have a PhD, after all. I have been a teacher, a college administrator, counselor, an author. I’m pretty hot stuff. I have aged, like fine wine.
Then another voice, “Oh, yes, you are hot stuff, a hot glob of clay, my child. Nothing more nothing less, just what I created you to be. I’m the Potter, you are My clay. Before you were even born, I designed you. Every event, every difficulty, every accomplishment, was arranged to form you into who you are, standing there before Me. And it was through love that every element of your forming was put in place. Sure, you are ‘hot stuff’, My hot stuff! Do something with that pride…put it in my garden with the rest of the fertilizer.
Over some of those ‘certain years’, as you put it, your will and My will flowed together smoothly. You thought you were in full control of your life and that was because our wills were in harmony. And then there were those times when you wandered off, and I just smiled for I knew that you had drifted away against My will and against My purposes, and you would return when you feel that distance, that separation, and you would stop, and would seek My Face.
Can you relate to that dialogue? That’s my story, but it’s your story, as well. Once we have surrendered our lives to the Lord, occasionally we draw back, and in the drawing we find ourselves separated from the Almighty, lost. We want to be in charge of our lives, in fact, we brag about that to others. Yet, down deep we know that God is truly in charge. Yes, He is the Potter to this life we know, that at its core, simply a glob of spiritual clay. But, we are His Clay, and that makes all the difference. True?
One Life To Live:
This is the only life I have, this is this is one in my head, the one that travels along the surface of my body singing the low-voltage song of the ego, the one that feels like a ball between my ears sometimes and other times feels absolutely galactic, the life that my feet carry around like two blind scholars working together on a troublesome manuscript.
This is the only life I have, and I am standing dead in the center of it like a man doing a rope trek in a rodeo, passing the lasso over his body, smiling inside a twirling of ovals and eclipses.
This is the only life I have and I never step out of it except to follow a character down the alleys of a novel or when love makes me want to remove my clothes and ssle classical records off a cliff.
Otherwise you can always find me within this group of myself, the rope flying around me, moving up to encircle my head like an equator or a halo or a zero.
Prayer:
Look, Lord, on an empty vessel that needs to be filled. In faith I am weak—strengthen me. In love I am cold—warm me and make me fervent so that my love may go out to my neighbour. I doubt and am unable to trust you completely. Lord, strengthen my faith and trust in you. You are all the treasure I possess. I am poor, you are rich, and you came to have mercy on the poor. I am a sinner, you are goodness. From you I can receive goodness, but I can give you nothing. Therefore I shall stay with you.
