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

THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN A CHRISTIAN'S LIFE

THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN A CHRISTIAN’S LIFE

                                                Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

Psalm 139:7&8

I grew up being taught that God is “omnipresent.” It meant that He was everywhere all the time. 
Throughout much of my younger years, I lived unaware that He was present and at times it seemed like he was nowhere to be found.  It's not that God was hiding.  I just did not take the teaching about his presence seriously.  I was not interested enough to be aware.  My antenna was down.  My reception was turned off.  I wasn’t tuned in to God.  Most of the time I was ignoring God.  By this default position I remained in the dark regarding who he truly was and how accessible He could be.  I was not alone.  Many Christians remain unaware of the presence of God in their life.  Unaware, they miss noticing God's grace and live life struggling from one challenge and problem to the next.  It's difficult to maintain a strong faith when we ignore God or live like He is absent.

When we don't sense God's presence prayer becomes an exercise of calling for a lifeguard while treading water hoping somehow to stay afloat until He throws a life line.  Doubt prevails that God hears, cares, and is near enough to respond.  The truth remains.  God is near.  He is not an absent landlord.  He is Lord, ever and always present in every Christian’s life.  If you are unaware of God's presence in your life, here are four ways you may grow in an awareness of God’s omni-presence:

1.     Thanks and Praise – Read Psalm 100:4.  It speaks of gates and courts referring to the Temple in Jerusalem and its many gates and courts.  The temple gates are associated with thanks to God and the temple courts with praise.  The Temple itself is a metaphor for progressive intimacy with God and holiness.  Thanks spills over into praise to God for the gift of his presence and grace. Thanks and praise are an appropriate responses to the Giver of all good gifts.  Together they occasion a profound awareness of God's steadfast faithfulness and presence in our lives.

2.     Means of Grace - John Wesley was fond of teaching and preaching about the presence of God experienced through what he called the means of grace.  In a more modern expression we might call means of grace our “habits of the heart.” They are habits of piety - love of God (ie., worship, prayer, Bible reading, fellowship) and habits of mercy - love of others (ie., feeding the hungry, healing the sick, visiting the imprisoned, helping widows and orphans).  Wesley taught that through the means of grace we mature in our understanding of God’s identity and in our awareness of his presence.

3.     Christ at the Door – We read in Revelations 3:30, “Here I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”  Once you responded to his initial knock on your heart's door.  Now you may consciously consider Christ at the door each day, inviting you out into his day, his agenda, and his plan.  As you walk each day in His presence, he engages you in fellowship.

4.     Practicing God’s Presence – Brother Lawrence was a 
seventeenth century monk who practiced the loving presence of God. He spent years disciplining his heart and mind to yield to God's presence. He wrote, "As often as I could, I placed myself as a worshiper before him, fixing my mind upon his holy presence, recalling it when I found it wandering from him." Lawrence did the mundane chores of the monastery continually mindful of God’s presence so that even the lowest, most humble work was completed in a spirit of worship.

God is always present.  We aren’t always conscious of his presence and proximity.  Yet he is so close.  He desires even greater proximity.  He desires to be more than near.  He desires intimacy, the ultimate in proximity, the infilling of his Holy Spirit in us.  You can’t be closer to God than being filled to the measure of fullness of his very Self. (Ephesians 3:19). 

 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

James 4:8

Since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus 
 . . . Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full of assurance of faith.

Hebrews 10:19&22

HOLINESS: ULTIMATELY, INTIMACY WITH GOD

Irene and Jonathan, Dec. 1969

We build relationships with others through two “variables”:  proximity and frequency of contact.  In social psychology it's called the acquaintance process. Proximity and frequency of contact are the powerful ingredients in the process of becoming acquainted with someone, building rapport, trust, friendship, and eventually intimacy.

  When I was courting my wife in college, I worked at getting to know her and her to know me by getting close and connecting with her throughout the day.  I would meet her after class, walk her to the next class, arrange my schedule around hers, and make little dates like eating lunch and dinner together in the college dining commons.  Each day I could hardly wait to see her again.  Back then it was about theory and practice. I read about the acquaintance process in my first social psychology class and decided to live the theory by practicing the acquaintance process. I engaged proximity and frequency of contact.  I became increasingly in touch with the girl of my dreams and married her toward the end of our college days together.  That was 44 years ago.

Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road . . . Luke 24:32

When’s the last time you woke up and said to yourself, “I need to be with God today”?   While we may anticipate an important meeting or date with someone,  as Jesus's followers, we struggle with anticipating opportunities to meet with God.   We don’t think  about our proximity and frequent contact with Him throughout the day.  Before the legs swing over the bed and the feet hit the floor, very few people say,  “I can’t wait to spend time with you, Lord”.  I could be wrong, but it is rarely at the top of our list of things we look forward to when we awake.  Isn’t the Christian life potentially a daily walk with Christ and an increasing acquaintance with him?  Our close relationship and frequent opportunities for interaction with Him are paramount to everything we do going forward into the day.   At the heart of our relationship with God is the opportunity to draw near and encounter Him as he waits to encounter us.

The challenge is beyond having occasional hits of contact with God.  It is more than a spontaneous call for help when a crisis arises, more than the flash of memory to pray for someone we promised.  It is more than dependence on someone else’s walk with Christ to provide an awareness of His love and presence.  The challenge is a matter of continual awareness.  We sense that He is present.  We know that He wants a growing relationship. He longs for us to continually walk with him (Micah 6:8 – “walk humbly with your God.”)  He wants us to not only grow in the grace he provides.   He longs for residence, infilling our hearts and lives.  He wants us to be productive and fruitful in the life we live.  Jesus makes it very clear -

If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.  Apart from me you can do nothing.”  -John 15:5

"I give . . . water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14

You can’t get a closer encounter with Christ than to remain in Him.  We remain by  “habits of the heart” (Bellah, et. al.) in the “spirit of the disciplines” (Dallas Willard). John Wesley would say we remain in him through means of grace including immersion in the Word of God, an active prayer life (personal and communal), public and private worship, and the sharing testimonies with others.  Other means of grace are wholesome reading, music, and fellowship with other Christians, giving thanks and praise to God and to others, and being intentionally engaged in acts of mercy, charity, and doing good to others, especially the marginalized, oppressed and poor. These means help remind us that Christ is present.  They help us understand his essence.

The journey of proximity to Christ and daily, frequent contact with him leads to greater things.  As we seek to remain in Him, He makes us His dwelling.  The acquaintance process occasions intimacy with God.  He transforms us into persons of holiness and means of grace for others.  In a growing acquaintance with Christ, we find the power of proximity and daily contact.  Ultimately we find intimacy with God.  May it be ever so!