WHAT FILLS YOUR POT?

“No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’  When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?” Romans 9:20-21, NLT

In my relationship with my Creator, how often I forget which of us is the potter, and which is the clay.

I approach my time with Him with preconceived notions, often incorrect, about what the Lord wants to do with my life, or in it. Unfortunately, those notions too often begin more with what I want Him to do, rather than what He wants to do.

So, I wonder, why is the heart of the clay so frequently inconsistent with the desire of the Master Potter to shape His masterpiece into something so unimaginably radiant?

Maybe I need to examine what I allow to fill the pot in order to find the answer. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”

In other words, in a fallen, sinful world, a human heart is not naturally predisposed to desire the things that God desires. Without Christ residing in its confines, the heart is a cold, selfish, greedy and bitter place, that seeks its own interests above all else.

There is the key – without Christ.

Paul writes in Colossians 3:16, “Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.”

Jesus Christ is the Living Water. If I pursue His word and His will daily, the natural product will be a rich and fertile heart filled with love, joy, wisdom and gratitude. Such a heart will, by nature, pursue the will of God, because such a heart is already in line with what His heart desires.

On the other hand, when I try to fill that same pot with only what the world says matters – wealth, power, admiration, and personal gratification in the many forms it takes – such pursuits will invariably leave me parched and devoid of life. If I am not filling my life with Christ, I will spend my time digging in the desert for an oasis that can never be found in the shifting sands which all eventually blow away, anyway.

In both Jeremiah 17:8 and Psalm 1:3, a heart that pursues the Lord above all else is described as being as a tree planted by a stream or a river bank.

Such a tree, constantly fed by flowing water, is a fertile and fruitful plant, and a lush and beautiful sight to behold. It provides nourishment to the hungry and a respite for the weary. It gives life to the plants around it, and to all who seek it out, because it draws its own life from a constant source that never runs dry.

When you draw your life from the Creator – the potter – He will grow you, He will shape you and He will use you where He chooses to plant you.

Do you truly want to be used by the Lord?

Then, instead of telling Him what you want to be, let yourself be sculpted by His hand and filled with the living water of His word. Because a masterpiece shaped by His hand is a beautiful creation.