THE COMPANY YOU KEEP BECOMES A POTTER’S WHEEL

Asbury University - My Alma Mater

When I was transitioning from adolescence to young adulthood, God blessed me in so many ways through one man and his wife. I've

lost count of all the ways.  He was my major professor.  It was a special time when God used them as means of grace in my life.  In surprising ways their coming along side occasioned a series of unanticipated blessings.  They were the Potter's wheel.

I was the third child in a family of six children of parents who were in Christian ministry (The Salvation Army). We were rich in faith, but relatively poor economically.  I plowed my way through college on scholarships and by working as many as twenty hours a week on campus.  The first year I cleaned the floors, bathrooms, and “chalkboards” of the science building.  The second year I mopped the college kitchen floor each night, seven nights a week.  Then, beginning in my third year, my major professor also became my mentor.  He asked me to serve as a research assistant that year and the next.  He also insisted that I take directed readings from him in my major field of study, psychology.  He knew what he was doing to prepare me for the future.

Dr. Alan Moulton

When I took the graduate record examination in the process of applying for graduate school, I “blew the top off the exam!”  His interest shaped my life and gave me the competence and confidence to apply for admission into the doctoral program at the nearby university.  When I did, I asked him if he would write a letter of recommendation required by the application process.  Here’s what he did. He was so amazing.  He wrote a very strong, positive letter and shared with me a copy.  I was pleased and grateful.  But he then went out of his way, the second mile.  He walked the letter into the chairman of the department’s office at the university, the same department where he was finishing his Ph.D., and plead my case thereby promoting my acceptance into the doctoral program.  It was unanticipated, unprecedented support.

Kitchen tables become sacred places

Once in the doctoral program, Dr. Moulton and his wife, Yvonne, (along with mine) became my biggest supporters as I plowed through the rigors of doctoral studies, research, and the dissertation.  Their kitchen table became a special place of refuge, a special alter where God’s grace through their advice, hospitality, and prayer was liberally available and applied.  God does these things.  Through those who faithfully walk in the Light of God’s grace, he guides them to come along side others (like me back then) who needed God’s grace in specific ways.  

God shapes the clay of our lives and uses mentors and wiser agents of grace to shape our lives.  For a season or two, they become the Potter’s wheel on which we find ourselves as the clay.  That’s one of my testimonies of God’s creative, proactive work in that formative time of my life.  I have many more testimonies of God’s grace over the years.  I hope to share another some time.  But what about you?  Who are the Potter’s wheels in your life?  A friend, a spouse, a professor, pastor, stranger?  Whose are the Potter’s wheel you keep?  To whom is God prompting you to come along side as the Potter's wheel to help shape the clay of their lives?

Let us consider how we may spur on another on

toward love and good deeds.

Let us not give up meeting together, . . .

but let us encourage one another.

Hebrews 10:24&25

SCARS, WOUNDS, AND HEALING

Saturday morning often means yard work.  I was trimming some mature bushes when I went too deeply into the bush where there was no longer growth and created a noticeable scar.  I stepped back to assess the damage and remembered a scar down my left arm from heart surgery several years ago when they moved a blood vessel from my arm to my heart.  So, in life there are scars of various kinds.  The scar in the bush will likely be covered over and disappear with time as the bush continues to grow.  The scar on my arm is permanent. 

 I remember a student once noticed the long scar down my arm.  He asked “What happened to your arm?”  Jokingly I answered saying, “I had a rough childhood!”  His eyes got big and I could see the mental wheels turning imagining what kind of childhood that must have been.  Then, to his relief, I told him I was only kidding and explained what happened.  Thankfully, physical wounds heal, but leave scars.  Some small scars from my childhood are gone.

Some scars you cannot see.  They are emotional and long lasting.  Some wounds don’t heal and continue to hurt.  I have a friend who after a long, laudable life of leadership was publicly accused of something quite disparaging and out of character.  His reputation for character took a terrible hit.  For years he returned again and again to the situation visiting with me the reasons he was so wrongfully accused and hurt.  One morning over breakfast I finally said to him, “Listen.  We’ve covered this ground many times.  If your heart is going to heal, you must stop picking at the scab.  If you don't, your wound won't heal.  If you do, you will likely have a scar.  Some scars fade with time.”

When I think of my friend, I remember a helpful book by United Methodist pastor David Seamand's entitled Healing of Memories.  I look back and wish now that I had a copy of that book then to pass on to my friend.  If you know someone who struggles with open wounds of memories not yet healed, you may find David Seamand’s book on line at Amazon.  Praise God for the wisdom of Christian writers and the balm of the Holy Spirit's counsel.  Thanks be to God for the right words for hurting friends. 

. . . and by his wounds we are healed.  -  Isaiah 53:6b

CONNECTING THE DOTS OF HOLINESS

The more we immerse ourselves in the Word, the more we connect the dots and make remarkable discoveries.  The big picture comes into view. A passage here informs and clarifies another there.  Light from this passage sheds light on another.  Jesus said the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth (John 16:13). Immersion is not merely reading a few verses and dashing out the door.  It includes pondering, memorizing, sharing scripture with others as it becomes part of us.  As a result, the Holy Spirit shines light on the nature of God, God’s nature in us, and the dynamic, synergistic relationship we have in him.  Here’s an example of how passages of the word connect and reveal otherwise fragmented and hidden truths:

The Apostle Paul writes – “Work out your own salvation (Philippians 2:12)” by the means of which God makes available (Acts 2:42), what John Wesley calls the means of grace (scripture, prayer, Biblical teaching, fellowship of other Christ followers).

OK!  I can work it out, because “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).  And how does that happen?  Paul goes on to say, “for it is God who works in you to will and to do according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). 

There it is:  our will aligned with God’s will and his desire becomes our desire to “will and to do according to his good purpose (desire) for us.  And what is that?   We read in Ephesians 3:19, “. . . that we be filled with the measure of the fullness of God (holiness, likeness, purity of heart) so that we continue to will and to do things which are unimaginable (Ephesians 3:20) as acts of piety and mercy (service) to God’s glory (Ephesians 3:21).  In this intimate synergism with God we come to grasp the magnitude of God’s love for us and for the world (Ephesians 3:18) such that  “The love of Christ compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14) in all we do in response to God’s grace.

The deeper we get into the Word, the more the big picture comes into focus, the deeper our understanding, the more God transforms us into his likeness, the more we participate in his nature (2 Peter 1:4), the more we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the more we give glory to him both now and forever (2 Peter 3:18).  Amen!  In the words of Salvation Army commissioner James Knaggs, then, “Be holy and get to work!” . . . working out our own salvation by devoting more time in the Word and letting God do a remarkable work in and through us.  Glory to God!

GLORY TO GOD OR DÉJÀ VU’ ALL OVER AGAIN

When I was just a boy, my dear mother had to repeat herself several times to get me to do something she wanted me to do.  It wasn’t that I was intentionally and perpetually disobedient.  Rather, I was distracted by my own will and focused on doing what I wished to do.  Some how I just didn’t hear her directive and was slow to respond.  As I got older, it didn’t get better.  As famed New York Yankees catcherYogi Berra would say, it was "déjà vu’ all over again."  Regardless of how much frustration I occasioned in my dear mother, and how upset she would become, she still loved me.  I was blind to the reality that her frustration was compounded by the fact that she had five other children very much like me: self-absorbed and focused on their own interests.

Not listening and obeying is endemic in the human condition.  It is our chief shortfall in our relationship to God, our Father.  How many times in the Scriptures do we read of mankind’s disobedience.  God makes clear his will and desire for us.  For millennia we’ve ignored him.  We just don’t listen, or when we do hear him, we are inclined to pursue our own will and desires.  When God says follow me, we simply go our own way.  We see this throughout the Bible and we see it today.  Its déjà vu’ all over again.

The other thing we see is God’s remarkable patience and forgiving heart.  When Jesus taught his disciples in the upper room on the eve of his crucifixion, one of the things he said was, “Remain in me.  If a man remains in me and I remain in him, he will bear much fruit” (John 15:4).  His words were a directive and a promise: remain and be fruitful. At the time of his arrest, instead of remaining faithful to him as their dearest friend, they all scattered.  It was “déjà vu’,  a repeat of human history.  Not much has changed today.  Rather than remain, we scatter our own ways.  

It doesn't have to be that way.  Just the opposite took place in the Book of Acts.

  On one occasion before his ascension to the Father, Jesus directed them to remain in Jerusalem and wait for the gift the Father promised (the Holy Spirit).  This time, the gathering of 120 were obedient.  They waited for ten days and God made good on his promise (Acts 2:1-4).  He always does! Glory to God!

Throughout the old and new testaments, God requires obedience and directs his people to remain in him.  In him is the best place possible for them.  He desires his people to cling to him (Jeremiah 13:11), to continue to live in him (Colossians 2:6), and to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit in their inner being that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith (Ephesians 3:16, 17), grasp the magnitude of his love, and be filled with the very fullness of God (Ephesians 3:18,19).  All these scriptures echo Jesus’ words, “Remain in me . . . bear much fruit.”  The sad reality is that we have such a struggle hearing the Word of the Lord (Jeremiah 13:11 – “But they would not listen.”) and then obeying.  We then miss out on the abundance of God’s fruit.

So, here’s the question:  Are you remaining in Christ, continuing in him, letting him dwell in you by the Holy Spirit, filled with the fullness of God, bearing much fruit, more than you could ask or imagine, to the Glory of God (Ephesians 3:20,21) or is it “déjà vu’ all over again”? 

BEING PERFECTED ON THE POTTER'S WHEEL

I sometimes say to friends when discussing college basketball, “Take the matter of the University of Kentucky's remarkable 38 and 1 win/loss record last year.  The team was not perfect, but week by week they improved.  They were being perfected.  It’s a process.”  Just yesterday, Kentucky’s coach, John Calipari, said about this year’s team with several new players, “It’s going to be a process, but we’ve got a chance to be special again.”  Now with a group of young men with great potential, but with flaws, shortcoming, and egos, he’s taking them on the journey of “being perfected.”  We’ll see how far they get and how well they do.

That sports metaphor is just right for us spiritually.  We may be flawed with shortcomings, a fallen, sinful nature, and a measure of ego.  By the grace or God, however, having repented of sin, surrendered our hearts and lives to Jesus, and chosen to follow him, we are not perfect, but we are “being perfected.”  It's a process!

A beautiful ceramic vase is also occasioned by a process.  An artist takes a lump of clay and begins to shape it into something more.  Spiritually, Jesus is the Potter with his hands on our lives and his foot pumping the Potter’s wheel.  Then we may ask, “If he is the Potter, what’s or who’s the wheel?  In the context of UK basketball, the players are the clay.  The coach is the potter, and the wheel is others, the university and its athletic program.  Spiritually, for us the wheel is others, family, close friends, colleagues, our faith community.  They all may be the means of grace that God provides as he get’s his hands on the clay of our lives.  The Potter and the wheels are both the company we keep that spiritually shapes us.  We are being spiritually perfected into Christ's likeness.

And you!  Are you being shaped and perfected?  Whose hands shape the clay of your life?  What and who are the wheels does God spin as he works to shape you into his likeness? . . . or are you someplace else as clay in some other's hands on some other wheel?  

The word of the Lord came to me . . .

Can I not do with you as the potter does?

Like clay in the hand of the potter,

so are you in my hand.

Jeremiah 18: 5&6