Revisiting my previous blog written a month ago, I find myself, today, more steeped in it than even then. God is at work in us, and His fingers press against the hopefully supple clay, our lives in response. We choose to remain soft and available, or firmer and resistant. It is our responsibility to adjust our attitude and hearts in a manner that we can be gently pressed into His will, or face the blows of His hammer and chisel to be conformed into His likeness.
It isn't easy, I must confess, to remain supple. The world, the struggles of life, real life where we live it, can easily harden our hearts. It is one way we can 'protect' ourselves. Yet protecting ourselves may be, in fact, counter that of what God wants to forge in us. Maybe our plight is part of His endeavor to steep in us an understanding. How can we understand another's struggle, unless we ourselves endure similar situations? Is it not that as we face and overcome the valleys, the joys, and even the regularity of life that we can come alongside another who is facing that which we, with God figured out how to get through?
Is it not time for a new accountability? Is it not time to come alongside another? Is it not also time to be real, sharing our triumphs and the mistakes we made while trying to figure out our times of distress and angst?
Romans 9:18-24 says this:
Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. 19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? 22 What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory — 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
It is a difficult process, this living of life, this enduring ordeals, facing day after day, new struggles and victories while still wrestling with old ones. It isn't easy, no, actually impossible to remain supple in this world without some means of connection to The One who will help us remain so. Those who know me at length can speak of this man's heart being transformed from one with an oft pessimism, to one of frequent hope and encouragement. It comes not from myself and me forging the change within, but because I have allowed this heart to be softened, desiring a suppleness that allows it to be transformed and pressed with greater ease by my Master, the God who owns me and loves to lead me in ways of righteousness for His name's sake. It isn't easy to remain supple, but it is much easier if I frequent the presence of the one who is pressing on me, for then, He can shape me back into His desire and I don't require dynamic, forceful reshaping, just gentle pressing and massage as a response to His leading.
