Stay!

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord : “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord . “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.

Jeremiah 18:1‭-‬6 NIV

Kiln - an oven, furnace, or heated enclosure used for processing a substance by burning, firing, or drying

As believers, it’s often difficult to admit that we don't have it all together and we seldom want to admit that we've gotten ourselves into a mess. But the truth is we don't believe that God can transform our mess so we try to hide it or we try to fix our own mess (oftentimes creating an even bigger mess!) or we refuse to even acknowledge the mess. Well, I have a secret to share with you… Your mess doesn't scare God away! In fact, He knew you were going to end up exactly where you are right now on this day, at this time. But guess what...He’s not afraid to get His hands dirty. It's all part of the job. Your mess is is His to transform. Whether it's a trial or your own bad decisions, it’ll take God to create a masterpiece out of it. Your job is to do what clay does. Be malleable bend to the will of the Potter. This isn’t just a blog post. This is a reminder to you, yes you, that you’re not finished yet! Moreover, God’s not finished yet! You may be marred clay now but God can make a something beautiful out of you still. Every masterpiece created was at one point, to the untrained eye, a huge mess, an indiscernible work. Don’t be afraid of admitting that you don’t have it altogether. Newsflash! God already knows lol. And you might be a mess but you’re a beautiful, intricate, powerful mess. A mess with immense potential for greatness simply because you’re in the Potter's hand. When a potter sets out to create, the clay doesn't know what it's going to become. It only feels the pressure of the potter's hand. It doesn't know what shape it will take or what it's end will be but it stays on the wheel. Even after it’s been shaped, it only knows the extreme heat of the kiln. It doesn’t know however, that the heat is literally strengthening it and transforming it from weak clay to strong, durable, BEAUTIFUL ceramic. I challenge you to shift your perspective and remind yourself that the mess you see today, whether it’s the mess around you or the mess in you, it has an expected end. The Potter, before He started working on you, knew what your end and purpose would be. In fact, he predetermined your purpose and then set out to create you and despite every hiccup, every wrong turn and every mess in your life, if you will stay on the Potter’s wheel, God will transform and mold you into exactly who you need to be to accomplish that purpose. And after you’ve been shaped by the very hand of God, you'll be strengthened and polished in the heat of a kiln. If it feels like God has turned the heat up in your life, I challenge you to stay put. Yes, you heard me right! You might be tempted to run away from the discomfort and back to what you’re comfortable with but the word of the Lord to you today is: “stay put!” God doesn't just have a purpose for you in spite of the heat. No! The heat is part of His plan, it’s part of the process of making you look like Jesus. The pottery doesn't run out of the kiln because it's too hot. No, it withstands the heat. In fact, it braves the intensity of the temperatures because every second that it remains there, its strength grows! The purpose of the fire isn't to burn you, it's to make you stronger. If you will let it. I don't know what your fire is but I guarantee you, it's perfecting you. That job you hate is building your character. Waiting for that prayer to be answered is cultivating the fruit of the Spirit in you. The fire of persecution is strengthening your faith. You have to decide whether you're going to run from the process or take the heat and be refined. Kings, queens, I pray that you stay on the wheel and that you stay in the heat. There's a beautiful you on the other side of the process. A holy you, a Christ-like you. So wait just a little while longer. Let the Potter do His work, let the fire purge and polish and do not lose sight of the fact that the process is making a masterpiece out of you.

#faith #relationships #Jesus #surrender #submission #God #faithfulness