His Word, My Change

"The word which came to Jeremmiah from the Lord, saying, Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it." Jeremiah 18:1-4

A few weeks ago while at work, I was praying and telling God my troubles and desires. As I expressed my love, I heard him say to me, "but do you love enough?" I responded with, "of course, I just told you." He again asked if I loved ENOUGH. Since I could see our conversation going no where fast, I just stopped and asked God what he meant by ENOUGH. His response was clear, tender and compassionate when he said, "do you love enough to change?" That set me up straight and I thought about my love and my desires and knew without a doubt that my love was strong enough. As I said, "Yes God, it is strong enough but I can't change without your help, as I don't know how to be different." He let me know he is always with me and we are in this together. Each day, he has guided me through the sometimes traumatic experience of change. There are times he has put a chastising word in my mind or a encourager/motivator in my path. Over the last three weeks God, the master potter, has been molding me... re-molding me rather... into what He needs me to be. He is taking the lump of clay that is me and shaping me into a vessel of honor that he can use in his kingdom. Though being on the potter's wheel is at times quite uncomfortable (and in my case a lot of work) I know that if the change is to be complete, I must submit to him.

Sometimes we pray and ask God for this or that but we do not see how in order for Him to answer our petition, we must change. In order to win our harvest field, we must seek His face and allow him to mold us (our attitude and actions) into the person he needs us to be. Do we have ugliness on the inside while our outside shows we are a Christian? Perhaps our outside (actions and appearance) needs to be shined up a bit to truly let Jesus shine through us. All of that requires the hard work and uncomfortableness of change. Do you love God enough to change? Do you desire the answer to your prayer enough to change?

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:" Philippians 1:6