Crushsed by the Potter's Hand

Maya Angelou wrote a book called "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."  I never read that book, but the title is speaking to me today, like it never has before.  I'm not saying I'm in a cage.  I'm not saying I am a bird.  But the last 5 years of my life have taught me that God is with us, even in the deepest, darkest valley.  He will sustain us through every trial even if the end of the trial is not the end we sought.  That knowledge, if we hold on to it, will allow us to sing.  We may sing with tears in our eyes.  The words of the song may get strangled while we gasp for air.  And we can still sing, because God said that he will never leave us or forsake us.

The bird sings during the trial because that is what the bird was designed to do.  We were made to praise God and bring Him glory.  If we are not doing that then God will allow or even send a trial to remind us that we are to be constantly seeking Him and conforming ourselves to His image.  Thus we are like clay in His hands as we go through the storm.  A potter, when making a piece of pottery will shape and form that piece on the wheel.  When it comes to a point that the piece of pottery takes on a form that the potter does not will, then the potter will grasp and knead and shape the pottery.  If that piece of pottery still does not acquire the desired form, then the potter will crush that piece of pottery and using the same material, begin the process again; shaping and molding the piece of pottery.

God has crushed me on His wheel.  He has taken His mighty hand and slammed it down upon me.  I can only thank Him that he loves me enough to do this so that one day I will acquire the desired form.  It is painful to go through this process.  There are tears and times when all I can do is wait on the Lord.  But the Lord is faithful to fulfill his promises and in this place of remaking it is quiet enough for me to hear his still, small voice.

And, my God says to me, David: I created you to worship Me.  I loved you so deeply that I made My son to suffer for all of your sins.  David, if I love you that much, then surely you can trust me to lead you and to restore your soul.  Son, I know you are in pain.  I know your heart is broken.  I know you feel like you are unwanted and unloved by man.  I know you feel worthless.  I know you feel weak and powerless to stop this thing that hurts you so much that you want to take the very life that I gave you.  But David, My word says to fear not over 80 times.    My Son, what the enemy has taken I will restore in time.  You must go through this so that I can perfect you and prepare you.  Those are no longer your people.  That is no longer your home.  I am taking you to a new place and I will be with you every step of the journey.

And I say to my Father: Lord, I have fasted and prayed.  The burden is yours now.  I cast my care upon you and I await your perfect answer.  Through tears I say that I am yours and yours alone.  My mind cannot comprehend what you are doing, but Your word says you are working all things together for my good.  I ask you to protect and preserve those that I love.  I ask you to allow your spirit to enter into their hearts and minister to them.  I ask you to bless them and prosper their lives with much fruit.  Father I ask that you would restrain the hand of the enemy in their lives.  That you would cancel any assignments given in an effort to upset your plans.  I ask that You would forgive them of their sins and replace their hearts of stone with hearts of flesh so that they will be sensitive to You.  And I will praise you Lord, all of the days of my life.  I will sing to you at midnight when I am in jail.  I will sing your praises from the depths of my soul in the dry places.  I will speak of the joy only you can give.  And I will   Father I ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ.  

How to Respond to a Hard Heart

Brothers and Sisters when I posted my previous post I was unable to understand the importance of this concept.  Having said as much I need to warn the reader that I may need to break this into two segments.  

Firstly, as I wrote in the previous entry, there is someone close to me who has a hard heart against me.  If you don't know what that looks like, or feels like, please read that part again before reading ahead. 

So, brothers and sisters, the first thing I must do is reveal the effects of a hard heart on those that love the possessor of such a heart.  To avoid confusion, from here on the hard hearted person will be the "victim" and the object of the hard heartedness will be the 'bystander'. 

 In order to put it in a perfect context (I think), there is a death that occurs inside the bystander that changes them.  It is a humbling sort of emptiness that can be consuming.  The victim's behavior is so thoroughly degrading that the bystanders state is perpetual melancholy and extreme anger.  It is this state of the bystander that is both dangerous and necessary.  

It is dangerous because we have an enemy that wants to tempt us.  He knows us, and he is aware of the conditions that make us weak.  The greatest danger for the bystander is 'sin' because what the bystander desires more than anything else is to escape the pain.  The easiest way to escape is to self-medicate through sin.  Overeat, get drunk, let a few choice words fly, slam doors, kick things, go hangout at places you should not be in, look at things you shouldn't look at; listen to music you shouldn't listen to, all so you can forget how badly you are being treated if only for a short time.  And then, your opinion of yourself is lowered even more because you sinned.  So a cycle begins and the bystander struggles mightily to maintain an identity in Christ while they are in the storm.

But this is a necessary condition in that the bystander must exist in this state so that God can be glorified!  The bystander must understand that nothing can be done for the victim's heart apart from God.  The bystander learns to trust God by continuing to 'go through' the storm which is the victim.  The bystander learns to depend on God's grace and learn that God's grace is sufficient.  What the bystander must learn is that a person cannot control another person's heart.  They can only pray and continue to love unconditionally.  From this perspective, the bystander becomes stronger in Christ by picking up that cross and following Jesus.  Once again, God can show victory in those who are broken.  Not by their own power, but by his grace.

^{Hebrews 12}

⁷ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

⁸ We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

⁹ Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

¹⁰ Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

¹¹ For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

Forgiveness and Pain

Brothers and Sisters, I apologize in advance for the length of this post.  Please read below:

²¹ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

²² Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.^[g]

²³ “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold^[h] was brought to him. ²⁵ Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

²⁶ “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

²⁸ “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.^[i] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

²⁹ “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

This is from Matthew 18.  And it is here that I would like to begin dealing with today's topic.  People will test your godliness all of the time.  They will do and say things to you that will cause your heart to break and your blood to boil.  

I have someone in my life who has hardened their heart against me.  This person will be in a great mood talking with someone else, and in the same breath give me the coldest answer and coldest look for no reason.  This person will laugh with, joke with, dance, touch, eat with, hug, and enjoy life with until I arrive and then that person shuts down.  If I call this person on the phone I always get an annoyed 'hello' or 'what.'  I find things to do as acts of service for this person.  I pray for this person multiple times in a day.  I ask God to soften this persons heart.  I've even fasted so God will give me the strength to endure.  

But this has no impact.  In fact, this person has grown colder and shorter and meaner than ever.  It's gotten so bad that I use other people to relay messages because sometimes I don't think I can stand hearing the hateful tone in their voice.  I only call when I have to.  I find that it is much easier to send text messages because it makes me feel horrible to hear the disdain in this person's voice when I call.  I seems like when I'm at my lowest point, this person kicks me.  When I'm at my highest points, this person finds a way to bring me down. 

So I do everything I can to not retaliate, evil for evil.  I compliment this person daily.  I cater to this person as much as they will allow me.  I tell this person that I love them.  And all the while I am crippled by the blows I am dealt daily.  I am wounded, bleeding, crawling, begging for mercy.  I used to be a confident person, and now I am a shipwreck, kept afloat by the grace of God and nothing else.  I used to believe that with the support of this person that I could do great things.  Now, I can only suffer greatly.  I often think of myself as a leper in this person's presence.  They go out of their way to stay away from me.   

Brothers and sisters, I have known this person for a long time.  And we have both said and done things to the other.  I am in no way a martyr here.  I am not innocent and quite frankly, I cannot blame this person for how they treat me.  

Here is the real problem.  I want this person to go to heaven.  I want this person to be saved and filled with the Holy Spirit.  But the bible verses above tell me that this person has not forgiven me.  This person has become bitter and sour toward me because of the forgiveness in their heart.  This person believes I should be made to suffer and because I do not suffer anywhere else, this person has become my tormentor.  So I pray for this person, that they begin to understand the principle in the verses above from Matthew.  

If you have a relationship like this in your life, do not let your heart be hard.  Some days I am beaten and bloodied so much that I can hardly stand up.  No matter what I do, it's wrong.  Someone else can do the same thing, and be praised.  It's enough to make a grown man cry (but not this man, get back in there tear).  But I can attest that God's grace is renewed daily.  When I awake in the morning, the wounds have healed and God has placed a new song in my heart.  I am sad, but I can still find joy.  I can give that person grace, because that is what I have been given.  I can forgive that person because I have been forgiven.  

Because I am on this topic, I must address something equally difficult next week.  What to do when the pain is just too much.  Stay tuned.  

On Love and Grief

Brothers and Sisters I have been neglecting you and I apologize for that.  But I have returned with the following thoughts about love.

I have learned that love is a gift that we give to those which we choose.  As such it is free, and should be given with no expectations of reciprocity. 

Then we must determine that there are really two kinds of love.

On the one hand there is love returned.  Love returned is beautiful.  It is the mother and child looking into each others eye's and smiling at some private thing.  It is the elderly couple holding hands after 30 years of marriage.  It is the young couple dancing as if there is no one else in the room. The beauty of this love is enough to make the toughest man misty eyed because placed deep inside all of us is the desire to experience this type of mutual love.  

The returned love allows its participants to truly be themselves and know that they are sufficient just as they are without additions or subtractions. 

This type of love is a picture of Christ and his church.  He loves them and they have acknowledged and returnedbhis love.  This is the picture of Christ as the bridegroom.   Christ's love allows us to be full of love and pour out that love on others.  Because just as Christ loves his church, so then, does He love the unbelievers.  

This then leads to the second form of love.  This type of love is unreturned love.  It is when one person loves another but that love is unreturned. 

This is the mother whose face is filled with pain as the child she loves continues to run away over and over again.  This is the wife who knows her husband is cheating and she still makes his lunch and kisses him goodbye everyday.  This is our Lord inviting the world to accept his love and sacrifice only to have people persecute Him and those that love him. 

This 2nd type of love produces a deep grief.  It is still love but it is sad and it is painful.  The object of the love is an ever present reminder that somehow the love giver is unworthy of the object's affection.  In the mind of the love giver they are less than what they should be in the eyes of the object.

Which love then is of more value?
I would say the second type of love has more value for strengthing the spirit.  It produces grief but it also works to conform us to the image of Christ. 

Christ went to the cross to die for the very same people that not only did not love Him but they also ridiculed and beat him.  Yet he loved them enough to endure the pain so that he could save them.

Knowing as much as I do concerning unreturned love I must say that it is both the most painful and wonderful thing that could happen to a person.   It actually deepens your love for that person by removing all conditions.  So you no longer care if the person mistreats you,
Or has not made you a priority, or is mean to you and nice to eveyone else.  All of that pain is transformed into to love for that person that is exceedingly great and boundless. 

This second kind of love, brothers and sisters,  will give you more understanding of the Gospel than anything else.  So if you have a relationship like this do not give up.  Just know that God is at work in your life and that you by continuing to love are storing up treasures for yourself on the other side.