The Potter’s wheel sits quietly. It feels a great sense of anticipation as it sees the Potter carefully shape a lump of clay in her hands. Soon it will feel the clay upon it’s hard, smooth surface. Soon it will feel the current flow through it’s motor. Soon it will be spinning the clay so that the Potter can create an object that will delight the eyes and perhaps serve some useful function. The wheel knows that it has an important job.
The clay feels itself being shaped and formed in the Potter’s hands. It knows that it has been selected for something special. It knows that soon it will be spinning on the wheel. It knows that it will be lifted and smoothed and shaped by they Potter’s hands. The clay takes delight in its transformation. Spinning, rising, moving, changing, it feels itself become something new. The clay knows that it has an important role.
The glaze sees the clay transformed by the Potter. A shapeless lump becomes ever more round. A flattened sphere is patiently hollowed out. A rough, fat cup is smoothed and formed into a bowl. The bowl is refined r until it is a beautiful balance of form and function. Now the potter applies the glaze with steady hand and clear vision. The bowl will be colourful and bright thanks to the glaze. The bowl will be able to hold water without leaking thanks to the glaze. The glaze knows that it has an important duty
The kiln is getting hotter and hotter. As its thermometer creeps up towards the proper temperature it feels ever more ready for the object that will be placed within it. The kiln will set the clay into its permanent form. Patiently, the kiln will hold its temperature for as long as the Potter demands. All too soon the kiln will be allowed to cool down until the newly formed pottery can be safely removed. All too soon its job will be done. But the kiln knows that it is vital to the work of the Potter.
With wheel, clay and kiln the Potter practices her art. Her deft hands remove just enough clay from the pile. Her skilled fingers toss it on the wheel and shape it according to her desire. Her trained eyes help her apply just the right amount of glaze, in just the right design. Master of the clay, wheel, glaze and kiln, she creates a large, simple bowl. Clay, wheel, glaze and kiln are satisfied. They have done their jobs.
The bowl sits proudly on the table. It remembers that it was once formless and drab. It remembers how the wheel helped to shape it. It remembers how the glaze helped to make it useful and beautiful. It remembers how the kiln set and stabilized it. Above all, it remembers the Potter. It was the Potter that first imagined the bowl. It was the Potter that first chose the clay. It was the Potter that transformed the clay on the wheel. It was the Potter that glazed the newly formed bowl. It was the Potter that set the bowl in the kiln and controlled the how hot it would get and how long it would stay hot.
We are told in Scripture that we are wonderfully and beautifully made. Like clay in the potter’s hands, we are formed, glazed and fired by God. The bowl remembers its creator. Do we?
September 9th Sabbath
Did you have a good Summer Break? Perhaps you went away? Maybe you stayed close to home? Maybe you didn’t get your vacation yet, and you’re looking forward to a time away later on this year. One way another, whether you’re looking back on your rest time with fond memories or you can’t wait for your holidays to begin, I think we can all agree that time off is very important. Like the regular cycle of sleep and wakefulness we repeat every day, we need a cycle of work and relaxation in order to be at our happiest, healthiest best.
The concept of a vacation isn’t something new. It isn’t something Unions dreamt up in order to help workers; it’s not something devised by Governments in order to keep the population appeased. It’s not even something created by lazy people so that they might get out of working for a while. The concept of the vacation is one devised by God in order to bless both Creation and Creator.
God didn’t call it a holiday or vacation; it’s not a break or a getaway. God’s plan for rest is called a Sabbath. It is a time specifically set aside for us to do no work; in fact, it was a time God set aside for Himself after having completed the hard work of creating everything from nothing. That’s right: the first Sabbath was the seventh day of creation, the day God sat back from His labours and simply enjoyed the universe and everything in it.
Sabbath is not for religious purposes. God didn’t create it as a day to glorify Him; He created it because we need to rest from our labours. We need to stop working one day in seven for our physical health. That is the first and foremost reason for the Sabbath. Over time, the Sabbath rest included a time of celebration and praise, or what has become our Sunday worship.
Worship, however, is only an hour or so of our Sabbath, but our Sabbath is not just an hour or so long; it’s an all day thing. One whole day in Seven to rest, relax and recover from our six days of toil. So, before and after church, we still have a day in which to relax. What to do, what to do? A picnic might be nice. Maybe a relaxing walk in the park. Perhaps a visit with family or an afternoon by the pool. As the seasons change, so too do our rest options, but not the option to rest. Our Sabbath is meant to be nothing more or less than a day of safe and holy rest.
Somehow we’ve forgotten that. We’re so lost in our own way of doing things that we’ve forgotten one of the first gifts God ever gave us: Sabbath. Rest. Relaxation. Not rushing to the store; not doing overdue chores; not practicing for, or competing in, the next big game; not even doing last minute homework. Rest. Vacation. Taking a break. Getting away from it all, even if it’s just sitting and reading about a far off destination. The summer break may be over, but our Sabbath continues once a week. I pray you get a chance to enjoy it in earnest.
The concept of a vacation isn’t something new. It isn’t something Unions dreamt up in order to help workers; it’s not something devised by Governments in order to keep the population appeased. It’s not even something created by lazy people so that they might get out of working for a while. The concept of the vacation is one devised by God in order to bless both Creation and Creator.
God didn’t call it a holiday or vacation; it’s not a break or a getaway. God’s plan for rest is called a Sabbath. It is a time specifically set aside for us to do no work; in fact, it was a time God set aside for Himself after having completed the hard work of creating everything from nothing. That’s right: the first Sabbath was the seventh day of creation, the day God sat back from His labours and simply enjoyed the universe and everything in it.
Sabbath is not for religious purposes. God didn’t create it as a day to glorify Him; He created it because we need to rest from our labours. We need to stop working one day in seven for our physical health. That is the first and foremost reason for the Sabbath. Over time, the Sabbath rest included a time of celebration and praise, or what has become our Sunday worship.
Worship, however, is only an hour or so of our Sabbath, but our Sabbath is not just an hour or so long; it’s an all day thing. One whole day in Seven to rest, relax and recover from our six days of toil. So, before and after church, we still have a day in which to relax. What to do, what to do? A picnic might be nice. Maybe a relaxing walk in the park. Perhaps a visit with family or an afternoon by the pool. As the seasons change, so too do our rest options, but not the option to rest. Our Sabbath is meant to be nothing more or less than a day of safe and holy rest.
Somehow we’ve forgotten that. We’re so lost in our own way of doing things that we’ve forgotten one of the first gifts God ever gave us: Sabbath. Rest. Relaxation. Not rushing to the store; not doing overdue chores; not practicing for, or competing in, the next big game; not even doing last minute homework. Rest. Vacation. Taking a break. Getting away from it all, even if it’s just sitting and reading about a far off destination. The summer break may be over, but our Sabbath continues once a week. I pray you get a chance to enjoy it in earnest.
September 2nd Natural Born Failures
As I look back on the summer I realize that I did not do half the things I wanted to do. I had plans aplenty and scads of schemes but in they are all still in the development stage. That’s not to say I didn’t get anything done or that all of my dreams or visions are unfinished; I did manage to do a few of the things I had seen myself doing; I just didn’t do all of them.
Go ahead, call me a failure if you like; I can live with that. I knew going into the summer that I would not achieve all of my goals. My eyes were too big for my appetite and I had planned too much. My imagined accomplishments were not at all in line with the reality of the limited time allotted to summer. So I was destined to fail, hoist by my own organizational petard, if you will.
Most of us are, if we are honest, natural born failures. Now don’t get me wrong; that’s not an insult or something to feel bad about. To fail doesn’t mean that we do nothing right or that we are completely unsuccessful. To fail means that we have tried and not entirely succeeded. It means that we have planned but not accomplished all. It means that we must settle for what we have achieved, concede when we have been defeated and admit when we have managed to really blow it and need to be forgiven.
The biggest reason that we are failures is that we fail to realize fully who and what we are. We are God created beings of incredible talent potential. Take a quick mental survey of all the amazing things human beings can do. When you consider the feats of engineering done throughout the world or the artistic achievements evident throughout Chatham, you realize that God accomplished a lot when He created us.
Now, you might well be thinking, “With all our amazing success in the world, how can you call us natural born failures?” Good question, and here’s the answer: most, if not all, our achievements are monuments to ourselves. We do what makes us feel good without considering the cost to others; we cover acres of farmland with high-rise apartments. We produce art that glorifies our own beauty rather than glorifying the one that created us.
That’s why we are natural born failures: too much of our lives are devoted to us rather than God, our creator. Our egos and our stomachs drive us more than our love of one another and the God who loved us first. In other words we fail right out of the starting gate; rather than directing ourselves to God and succeeding we turn towards ourselves and blow it. It’s that simple.
As natural born failures you might think that God would not care for us or turn away from us. You would be wrong: God loves us in spite of and because of our failings. God knows we could never be perfect because He gave us the choice to do as we please.
Of course, knowing that we would make the wrong choices, God planned for His success in our lives through Jesus, His son. Through Jesus, God makes up for our failures. Through Jesus, we are forgiven and restored. Through Jesus, God’s love is made perfect in us. We may be natural born failures, but that doesn’t stop God from loving us, and it shouldn’t stop us from loving God as best we can.
Go ahead, call me a failure if you like; I can live with that. I knew going into the summer that I would not achieve all of my goals. My eyes were too big for my appetite and I had planned too much. My imagined accomplishments were not at all in line with the reality of the limited time allotted to summer. So I was destined to fail, hoist by my own organizational petard, if you will.
Most of us are, if we are honest, natural born failures. Now don’t get me wrong; that’s not an insult or something to feel bad about. To fail doesn’t mean that we do nothing right or that we are completely unsuccessful. To fail means that we have tried and not entirely succeeded. It means that we have planned but not accomplished all. It means that we must settle for what we have achieved, concede when we have been defeated and admit when we have managed to really blow it and need to be forgiven.
The biggest reason that we are failures is that we fail to realize fully who and what we are. We are God created beings of incredible talent potential. Take a quick mental survey of all the amazing things human beings can do. When you consider the feats of engineering done throughout the world or the artistic achievements evident throughout Chatham, you realize that God accomplished a lot when He created us.
Now, you might well be thinking, “With all our amazing success in the world, how can you call us natural born failures?” Good question, and here’s the answer: most, if not all, our achievements are monuments to ourselves. We do what makes us feel good without considering the cost to others; we cover acres of farmland with high-rise apartments. We produce art that glorifies our own beauty rather than glorifying the one that created us.
That’s why we are natural born failures: too much of our lives are devoted to us rather than God, our creator. Our egos and our stomachs drive us more than our love of one another and the God who loved us first. In other words we fail right out of the starting gate; rather than directing ourselves to God and succeeding we turn towards ourselves and blow it. It’s that simple.
As natural born failures you might think that God would not care for us or turn away from us. You would be wrong: God loves us in spite of and because of our failings. God knows we could never be perfect because He gave us the choice to do as we please.
Of course, knowing that we would make the wrong choices, God planned for His success in our lives through Jesus, His son. Through Jesus, God makes up for our failures. Through Jesus, we are forgiven and restored. Through Jesus, God’s love is made perfect in us. We may be natural born failures, but that doesn’t stop God from loving us, and it shouldn’t stop us from loving God as best we can.
A Personal Sabbath
My last post talked about Sabbath, so I took the entire month of July as a holiday.
Went to Italy for three weeks with Lois and the kids to see my family there. Hung out and did little or nothing productive for the rest of the time.
During August, I took a break from my 'Thoughts' in order to maintain the Sabbath habit for a while. It also gave the volunteer office staff a little rest, in addition to letting folks switch mental gears for a while. I feel that sometimes getting out of a routine is the best way to make a thing all the more special.
So, no 'Thoughts' (at least the regular written 'St. James'/'A better life' ones) in order to let you, dear reader, pause and reflect and maybe look at them in a new light.
For me, this Sabbath rest has been relaxing and inspirational. My 'Thoughts' have resumed. I am doing some new things as well. I will soon begin journaling and seeing a Spiritual Counsellor on a regular basis. Other things remain much the same as September gets underway and some of the regular routines are reestablished.
I thank you for taking this journey with me and pray that it is as much of a blessing to you as it is to me. May God be with you.
YBIC
JAG
Went to Italy for three weeks with Lois and the kids to see my family there. Hung out and did little or nothing productive for the rest of the time.
During August, I took a break from my 'Thoughts' in order to maintain the Sabbath habit for a while. It also gave the volunteer office staff a little rest, in addition to letting folks switch mental gears for a while. I feel that sometimes getting out of a routine is the best way to make a thing all the more special.
So, no 'Thoughts' (at least the regular written 'St. James'/'A better life' ones) in order to let you, dear reader, pause and reflect and maybe look at them in a new light.
For me, this Sabbath rest has been relaxing and inspirational. My 'Thoughts' have resumed. I am doing some new things as well. I will soon begin journaling and seeing a Spiritual Counsellor on a regular basis. Other things remain much the same as September gets underway and some of the regular routines are reestablished.
I thank you for taking this journey with me and pray that it is as much of a blessing to you as it is to me. May God be with you.
YBIC
JAG
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