Jar of clay
Sometimes I do well, other times I do not do well at all. What I'm referring to applies to all areas of my life: as a father, husband, student, minister, etc. This week I have been feeling that I have not been doing very well in many areas. As I look back, I retrace the steps of lost opportunities and conversations that did not result as I would have wished. I see the obvious tests that I failed and cringe with regret.
Why does God choose such a weak vessel as me to do his work? His goals would be so much more easily accomplished if he did them through someone else, or maybe if he just intervened in some miraculous way. Yet he has chosen this jar of clay to bear a great treasure. I just don't get it.
It's so easy to just suppose that the good I do is a result of grace, and the wrong I do is a result of my own flesh. But I think that is a simplistic way of assesing the situation. Can my own success be in fact a work of the flesh? Can my failure be a working of grace? It's all a mystery. The problem comes when I try to grade my performance based on the immediate results. I have no comprehension of eternity, of the eternal consequences of my actions.
I know some people who, feeling that they have really "blown it" in life, think that God will not use them until they fix whatever is wrong. In their eyes, they are resisting blessing while they remain slaves to the flesh. But can anyone who believes in the victorious resurrection of Christ really be a slave to the flesh? Are we not free from the conviction of the law? We now live to fulfill the law, not to be judged by it. The law is no longer our standard, rather it is the description of who we really are. What was broken has been fixed. Yet we stubbornly insist that it has not.
When I become only more aware of just how "claylike" my jar is, I must remember that it is the contents that matter, and not the container.
Why does God choose such a weak vessel as me to do his work? His goals would be so much more easily accomplished if he did them through someone else, or maybe if he just intervened in some miraculous way. Yet he has chosen this jar of clay to bear a great treasure. I just don't get it.
It's so easy to just suppose that the good I do is a result of grace, and the wrong I do is a result of my own flesh. But I think that is a simplistic way of assesing the situation. Can my own success be in fact a work of the flesh? Can my failure be a working of grace? It's all a mystery. The problem comes when I try to grade my performance based on the immediate results. I have no comprehension of eternity, of the eternal consequences of my actions.
I know some people who, feeling that they have really "blown it" in life, think that God will not use them until they fix whatever is wrong. In their eyes, they are resisting blessing while they remain slaves to the flesh. But can anyone who believes in the victorious resurrection of Christ really be a slave to the flesh? Are we not free from the conviction of the law? We now live to fulfill the law, not to be judged by it. The law is no longer our standard, rather it is the description of who we really are. What was broken has been fixed. Yet we stubbornly insist that it has not.
When I become only more aware of just how "claylike" my jar is, I must remember that it is the contents that matter, and not the container.