Feeling Again...

Originally Written : Tuesday, July 24, 2007

It's funny in sort of a sadistic way what our minds and our hearts can team up to do when we're hurt. Our emotions can get blugeoned to where they can either feel bitterness and hurt, or nothing at all. And holding it in just ups the ante. We can walk around dying or dead inside and it seems like nobody really cares, but we won't dare give them a chance too, maybe because we got burned pretty bad. Plus it's not like we'd want anyone to pity us anyway, that would just make us feel worse. We sit around and think, "I can't imagine ever feeling anything again... at least anything resembling true joy." We may even know the way, but not care about ourselves enough to pursue it. I have lived in this place. But God IS answering my prayer. My prayer that he would make me care enough about myself to pursue him. The hurt is still there, but the sting and the numbness is leaving me. Because God is blasting away at the softening the pieces of my heart and restoring it. I was not pursuing Him for a while. I was sitting stagnant. It was not that I was running from Him, but I was not running to Him, and that's just as dangerous. Yeah I was still happy, but after a long time of pursuing him my joy began to fade more and more and more. I was selfish and then I would get mad at myself for being selfish. I'd get frustrated and mad at myself for being frustrated. I still loved people, but not with the same fire. But my father in heaven is pulling me from being embroiled in that hellhole that was my deceitful pride. I still believe the same things about some of the things that have happened to me. But God is taking away the bitterness toward those people, I pray next that the awkwardness can be taken away and that I can forget it all together. But that will be a while and my patience must be utilized. I now have the joy of my father in heaven, and now when my selfish pity and pride and bitterness try to arise in me they are pressed away by the joy God has restored to me, whereas before I would dive in headlong.

If you've been in a place like this or are going through any kind of pain. Whether or not you're questioning God maybe this can help you:

the Bible presents a picture of Christ as the potter and us as the clay, but lets examine this a little further. What does that potter do to the clay? He transforms it... He makes it from "just a lump of clay" into a masterpiece? Let's think of ourselves as clay. Does clay know what's happening to it, does it know what it's becoming? No, and neither do we. Clay is pulled from it's home in the ground and set apart in a potters gallery for example. As when we are pulled to Christ and stored as sons and daughters of God. But a potter doesn't just buy clay for it to sit around in his studio and do nothing and remain a clod of clay. Neither did God purchase us with the blood of His only begotten son, just to sit around and look pretty or just be "Christians" and do nothing. So what must he do to transform us into a useful masterpiece? Well the potter takes the clay. He/she takes it and beats, stretches, etc. it into a workable clay. Then the clay is put on the wheel and spun and shaped and reshaped continuously. Well we are the clay. In God's transformation of us we are tossed and turned about. Our lives may be dizzying and confusing as we are spun on a wheel and stretched and turned seemingly everywhich way. Clay on the wheel can get off balance however and undo the work of the potter and the potter has to rework it. Kind of like when we try to do our own thing, or make handle our lives and pull ourselves out of whatever we're in without his help. Then we have to be reworked and go through more stuff to get to where he has us. The more we fight the more we have to be reworked, when just the working can be a long process. If we're not careful, just like clay, we can get lumpy and if we stay away from the potter we get in danger of being lumpy and have to really be broken to be able to be reworked. The clay in it's transformation to a masterpiece may get to times when it feels like its where it needs to be, just like we will in our life get complacent. Then the potter may spot something, something uneven or unfinished in need of reworking and begin to spin the wheel again to work that kink out. We think, well "I was doing good, why is this horrible thing happening to me." Just like the clay if it had feeling would be like... "ummmm owww dude why? I was a being good clay not flopping all around I was standing up and everything." These times can happen often in our lives. Then eventually when the potter has completed the shaping of the clay the clay may have settled down on the wheel. Kind of felt at home there. The potter then takes the potters string and cuts the clay from its base and its "roots" so to speak. These are the times when God asks us to GO somewhere or do something for Him out of our comfort zone. Just like the clay we can be like, "owww dude why. you had shaped me like you wanted me why are you moving me now?" But still the potter knows best. Then the clay which is now a pot is in the shape that God wants it in, but is still not as strong as the potter wants it to be... so it must be put into the kiln. It must be put through the fire in order to harden it and to solidify its shape. This is when, "bad" things happen to good people who are living for God. It's just making them a more stable and stronger masterpiece. Clay may have to be placed in the kiln multiple times, before its finally hardened and strengthened and fully ready to serve its purpose for the potter. Just like the clay. Throughout our journey we may be able to perform God's purposes, but we become better able as the journey goes along. We will never realize the full scale of the masterpiece God is creating in us unto we can understand as he can. There are two ways we can take this and apply it to our lives. We may know that he is forming us or not, but if we fight it and run from it the journey and the reshaping and reforming will take much longer and be much more painful. The best thing for us is to just realize and BELIEVE and say to God. " Here I am. I am clay in your hands. I know I'm gonna go through rough times, and I know I'm gonna hurt, but I know that the means will produce an ends that is glorious beyond my understanding. I pray that you be with me through it and put people in my life to help me through the reshaping, and me for others as well, but bottom line I trust you. I will be clay in your hands. Mold me and shape me as you will, because I trust in your abilities and your intentions." When we can truly believe this pain and hurt and confusion can be put in their proper perspective, instead of seeming like the end for us. We can then live with more joy, even when we are hurt, and our joy can spill over and help others, and that is a truly beautiful thing.

Our Potter who is in heaven
shallow be my pain
your will be done
in at least this one
on this earth
on my path to heaven

Give me this day
my daily spin
and forgive me for my hardness
as I forgive others
who've been hard to me

Lead me not into to the fire alone
but deliver me from pity
for thine is the wheel and the skill and the vision forever and ever
AMEN


Stay Clayey!



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