Why is it that I keep trying to make life all about the jar? I get so frustrated with myself! Now I don't think I'm the kind of person that you would suspect is stuck on herself. Prideful , puffed up or boasting. No, my vanity issues are cleverly disguised as insecurity and self-doubt. I lose sight of the unsurpassed value of the treasure when I take a magnifying glass to my jar. Pouring over each scratch and chip and mourning every flaw.
I was thinking about this metaphor and the fact that we don't have houses full of clay pots like they would have thousands of years ago. So, I thought, maybe it's like.....carrying around your diamond necklace in a plastic grocery sack. How strange would that be? How silly!
I was grinning and thinking to myself, that's kinda funny. I like being funny. But my new metaphor doesn't hold water, and I mean that literally....ha!
The absurdity of tossing your fine jewelry in a Walmart bag may give us clue into how wonderful, how great, how glorious the treasure of the good news of Jesus Christ and how ordinary we are as carriers of this treasure. But it really doesn't work for one reason:
Isaiah 64:8 Yet, O Lord, You are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter,
we are all the work of your hand.
Each earthen vessel was cupped in the hands of the Father. He sees the potential in a lump of clay, and with his own hands he forms us. Every grove, every line a reflection of his fingerprints.
The beauty of this metaphor is not only that the fragile nature of the jar only serves to make the treasure more glorious but that we are each uniquely created to carry and spill out this light, this truth, this life in a way that no other vessel can. We are all the work of his hand.
I am in awe and overwhelmed that I've been trusted to carry this treasure.
Lord, let each imperfection only serve to draw me deeper into dependence and help me to value the unique expression of your glory that flows through me!
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