A life of value and purpose

O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand (Isaiah 64:8).

So, what have you got planned for today?  Did you take something out for dinner, or are you going to eat out?  Is there a game on TV that you’re looking forward to, or do you have work to do around the house? 

What’s on your agenda for the next couple of weeks?  Christmas shopping?  Decorating the house?  A trip to spend time with relatives? 

Have you scheduled anything for 2013 yet?  Are you thinking about buying a new car or moving to a different home?  Have you thought about a job after you graduate?  Are you making plans for a wedding or a new child in the family? 

When I was growing up, Mom would have the menu for each evening meal planned a week in advance; that way, she only bought the groceries that we really needed.  While you might not make plans with that amount of detail, each of us does keep an eye on the future.  We buy insurance.  We put schedules for school events on the refrigerator.  We mark birthdays and anniversaries on our calendars.   We make reservations with airlines and hotels.  We set annual checkups for ourselves with doctors and for our pets with veterinarians. 

We make plans for the future.  Most of us don’t feel comfortable just living day to day.  We set goals and work to achieve them.  We set up contingency plans in case life throws us a curve ball.  We don’t like it when things change and force us to change as well.

And yet God’s prophet says, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter.  On the one hand, this statement is flattering; each of us has been personally shaped by God.  We can feel a sense of pride, knowing that He made us individually with His own two hands.  This makes each of us unique and special.

On the other hand, these words of Scripture can be troubling.  Each of us wants to find our own way, chart our own destiny.  But if God is the potter and we are the clay, our choices become limited.  A dinner plate won’t make a very good water pitcher.  A coffee cup won’t work well as a soap dish.  When a potter makes something out of clay, he gives it purpose by how he forms it.

We don’t like having restrictions placed on us.  We don’t like being told “you can’t do that.”  And a lot of the time, people have been right to push the boundaries.  Time was that women could not be firefighters.  When challenged in court, the people in charge of hiring said that women were not strong enough to do the job; firefighters must be able to carry an unconscious adult out of a burning building.  When a judge ruled that all people who wanted to be firefighters had to meet minimum guidelines for strength, it turned out that many women could pass the test, while some men could not.  Because someone pushed the boundaries, everyone benefited from better standards. 

But we have to accept the fact that each of us is limited.  Some are good at math, others are not.  Some are athletic, others are weak or clumsy.  Some are always thinking five moves ahead; others are easily distracted.  Not everyone is cut out to be a farmer or a fashion model, a teacher or a software designer.  Each of us is a unique blend of skills and natural ability.  Each of us can achieve many things, but none of us can do it all. 

In Ephesians chapter two Paul wrote, we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  God is like a potter working with soft and shapeless lumps of clay.  God designed each of us individually, making no two people alike.  He created us to fill different roles during our years on earth.  Paul says, It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11).  Some people have more glamorous jobs than others; some are allowed more creative freedom or receive better pay.  But everyone has a purpose here on earth.  1st Corinthians chapter 12 tells us, The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ…The body has many different parts, not just one part. If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything? But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it…If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. The totality of all believers constitute Christ's body, and you are a part of it.

Sadly, some of us don’t want to be what God made us.  Some people undergo surgery and hormone therapy to try and change their gender.  Some insist on dating the kind of toxic people that always ruin a relationship.  Some people flounder from one failed job to another, constantly missing that one career that they’re perfect for.  One example is Lyman Frank Baum.  As a youth, Baum hated military school and did not finish it.  As a young adult, he dabbled in breeding fancy poultry.  After he married, he settled in Aberdeen SD where he opened a store that went bankrupt.  He then edited a newspaper that went out of business.  Moving to Chicago, he tried his hand at being a reporter and a traveling salesman.  Finally, in his mid-forties, Baum collaborated with an illustrator on a children’s book that changed his life.  That book, published 112 years ago, was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  It turns out that Baum’s God-given talent was entertaining children (and adults) with stories of whimsical fantasy. 

Through Jeremiah God told His people, I know the plans I have for you…They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). But so much of the time, we aren’t interested in God’s plans.  He tries to point us in the best direction, but we stubbornly insist on following a different path.  Isaiah makes this unflattering comparison: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way (Isaiah 53:6).  When we doggedly pursue a direction that God did not intend for us, is it any surprise that life becomes hard?

It is foolish to make plans without taking God into account.  Listen to what James had to say on the matter: Look here, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil (James 4:13-16). 

Sometimes God gets in our way—He stops us from doing something that will result in great harm.  You’ve seen it happen—car trouble keeps a man alive, because it made him miss a flight that ended in a crash.  A woman gets a call from her mother that interrupts a suicide attempt.  But God does not always bail us out of our foolish behavior.  In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the young man squandered his inheritance on wild living; when he finally came to his senses, his father welcomed him home, but the money that he wasted was not replaced.  Although we are forgiven, sometimes God lets us deal with the consequences of our mistakes, making it a situation for us to learn from.

God is the potter, we are the clay.  There is much comfort in that idea. You have no reason to feel worthless; God does not make junk.  God designed you for a purpose; if life has been a string a failures, it just means that you haven’t discovered God’s purpose for you yet.  This casts a whole new light on calamity; when all your plans crash and burn, maybe God is clearing away the debris of your mistakes so you can start doing what you were made for.  Our plans may fail, but God’s plans do not.  We may be confused, but God always knows what is going on and what needs to happen next. 

We need to hear what God has to say and trust in Him.  We need Jesus to forgive us for being stubborn and unwilling to listen.  We need the Lord’s help to let go of the sinful things we love so we become open to God’s direction.  We need Jesus to lead us and to give us confidence that He knows what He is doing. 

This makes the Bible very important.  When you hear God’s Word spoken to you, or you read it for yourself, you are reminded over and over again how wise and powerful and loving God is.  The Bible is God’s book of wisdom for living in a morally confusing world.  The Bible is a record of God’s great power, power over storm and disease, over war and death.  And the Bible shows us God’s love through His Son Jesus, who was willing to die that we might live eternally in paradise.

Jesus never promised that life would be easy.  But we don’t have to be like salmon struggling to swim upstream in order to lay their eggs.  God is the potter, and you are the clay that He has given purpose through careful shaping.  Life can be so much easier if you stop trying to set your own course and let God take control.  Study the Bible, His handbook for life.  Pray for guidance.  Let Jesus put you to work doing the work God designed you to do.  You’ll be happy that you did.