Life Is Going To Pot

I’ve been thinking…   Life Is Going To Pot.

Are you dissatisfied with an area of your life?  Perhaps your career isn’t going as expected, maybe your family relations aren’t what they should be, your relationship with God might even be lacking, or the state of your health is worrisome.  Do you think that your life is going to pot?  Well, I agree – it is. 

Suffering Job asked almost a continuous stream of questions like: “Is this what my life will end like?  Why is this happening to me?” and “I think you made a mistake, God!”  He finally comes to an understanding in Job 42:2,3 when he prays, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”  Job recognizes that God is in charge of his life and all these questions were asked in ignorance of God’s control… what Bible scholars call Sovereignty.   

But how does God exercise His sovereign control over each of us?  The Bible gives us the example of the potter… making pots to accomplish roles that he has decided for them.   

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?  Isaiah 45:9 (ESV)  

Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?  Romans 9:21 (ESV)  

So, I’ve been thinking that the goal of my life is to be good malleable clay in the hands of my sovereign Lord.  I should confess my stubborn sins of pride, lust for power, and desire for position, and surrender my every moment to His control… after all, He does know what He’s doing. 

If I consider my life as a process where God is forming me into the pot He wants me to be… my goal is then to have my life literally “going to pot.”  The pot God wants for me.  The uses God wants to put me to.  

Then, even if my life/pot is one that from my perspective is average, I can be assured it is the life God desires me to live… and I want to live this life to His glory and praise. 

Paul was explaining this to young, first-time pastor Timothy when he wrote, “Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.”  2 Timothy 2:20–21 (ESV)  

It is in this context of walking through life as a surrendered lump of clay ready and willing for God to use in any way He sees fit that verses like these make sense. 

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28 (ESV)  

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Galatians 2:20 (ESV)  

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,   James 1:2 (ESV)  

No matter what the specific circumstances of our lives may be, if we are walking the path the Lord has asked us to walk, and serving Him with faithful obedience, our lives are being formed by the great potter/master into the pots He desires us to be. 

And what does that pot look like – the pot that God wants for each of us? 

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.  Colossians 3:5–10 (ESV)  

Do you want to live a life where you are being formed into the image of a pot that looks like Christ to those around you?  Let’s not be pots in the image of the sinful world we live in – let’s have lives that are going to pot – a pot that looks like Christ.   

The master potter wants to make you into a pot that’s a self-portrait.  Does your pot of a life look like God?  Then no matter what happens, we know the Lord/potter is in control.   

I want my life to go to that pot… yes indeed!

Think about it….