Stubborn or moldable?

One night a drunken fellow stumbled to his car as our men’s evangelism group was doing outreach outside a neighborhood bar, and asked,  “What’s that you got there?” When I handed him the flyer and began to talk, he interrupted me, “When I get to heaven, I’m gonna give God a piece of my mind!” He was a miserable wreck and had lost so much, but he had the attitude that God had messed up his life, and that he had a thing or two to teach God.  

It reminds me of the verse in Romans 9, “But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” He created us, He knows us, loves us and is so far above us that the only thing that makes sense is to bow in submission to Him. When we align ourselves with Him, everything in our lives falls into place and begins to make sense. When we don’t, it’s like a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel refusing to be shaped by it’s creator. It’s a ridiculous thought, but that’s the way the majority of humanity lives today.

We are created to do good, created to serve, to do whatever God calls us to do, and if we do that will be completely fulfilled and satisfied. But unlike a lump of clay, God has given us the gift of free will to resist Him or be moldable, or even breakable in His hands. If we say we love Him, our response to be, here I am God, use me — and then we go out and do exactly that.  

If God calls you to say goodbye to loved ones, you can be guaranteed that being moldable in His hands will create total fulfillment, that both they and you will be covered in His love and protection. Conversely, you can be guaranteed that refusing to be molded will cause a lot of pain. You may get to have your way and spend time with family and friends longer, but by resisting God, you open a door to the devil to create havoc. You’ll most likely cause your loved ones more harm than good by your stubbornness. So go ahead and tell your Potter that you don’t like His ideas or methods, and become a shapeless and unfulfilled vessel.  

But the examples we follow should be the heroes of faith in the Bible who rejoiced in persecution, who gladly took the gospel to the ends of the earth, and who turned the world upside down so that we can now have the opportunity to be saved. They counted it all joy to go through trials, but their lives were far from useless or unfulfilled. They speak to us thousands of years later, urging us to follow in their footsteps. Not everyone is called to leave their homes, but everyone is called to live out those good works that God prepared for us in advance. Ask Him now what that means for your own life, and then dare to do it.

For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10 HCSB)