Life on the Potter’s Wheel
And yet, O Lord, you are our Father.
We are the clay, and
you are the potter.
We are all formed by you hand.
Isaiah 64:8
January 5, 2013
So, it's the first Sunday of the new year. Entering into a new year is something that’s
always been a little, um…awkward…for me. There have been so many years where I’ve
found myself almost grieving on January 1st as the warmth and fun of
the Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas season gets tucked away for another
year. There have been years when I
couldn’t seem to slam the door on the old year fast enough although those have
been rare. There have even been a few
years where the excitement of new possibilities has seemed as explosive as the New
Year’s fireworks that we watch in my sister’s part of the world. Those are very rare too.
Most years I find myself wobbling into the new year on what
feels like very young and discovering feet. Now don’t read this as any kind of
a negative. In actuality I find it
hopeful, tentative, a little scary and calling for me to choose upon whom I
will depend. Will I depend on myself or
my circumstances that may seem certain and clear or foggy and perhaps a little
ominous? That’s kind of the choice I’ve tended to give myself over the
years. This last year has been teaching
me not to get too far ahead of myself in making that choice. In my rush to make that determination I
often miss the necessity of the mystery of waiting on God.
As I’ve share with many over these last months, the words
that seemed to hover over the journey that God has given me have been lean,
trust, wait. As I’ve shared, this is not
my customary tendency and in all honesty I’m not sure it’s always been the
message I think I’ve let myself even receive in church. How does lean, trust, wait
stand alongside stepping out in faith? Doesn’t
that require confidence and determination?
Doesn’t it require boldness?
There’s a scene in the movie “A League of Their Own” where
one of the players is on base and is trying to receive instructions from the
team’s manager played by Tom Hanks and she’s also receiving instructions from
the team’s captain and catcher played by Geena Davis. The instructions seem to be in conflict if
not completely in contradiction to each other.
The player ultimately has to make choice of whom she will listen to and
in the middle of it all she looks comically awkward and completely
uncertain. Oh how I feel like that
sometimes!
One of the interesting things I’ve been learning this year
is that sometimes looking comically awkward and completely uncertain requires a
decided amount of confidence and determination and boldness. I have been learning that choosing to take
practical steps in the midst of a time of unknown and waiting is a balance that
calls me to a radical trust and determined willingness to hold the reins of my
life loosely in favor of a loving, mysterious God who is not required to tell
me all of the details to come down the road. I may think I want the Lord to
tell because as my mom used to say, “If I knew what was going to happen then
I’d know what to do.”
One of the things
I’ve learned this year is that God isn’t really interested in me sensing a
clear and precise call from him but what God is interested in is my willingness
to seek, listen, trust and step even if things don’t seem to make as much sense
as I might like. The interesting thing
I’ve discovered this year is that the more I do this and the more I’m willing
to adjust my plans as I go, the more I’ve found peace. One of the primary things that God has put
before me to consider is what do I really believe about God’s good intent
towards me. Do I really believe
this? Do I really trust
this? Am I really willing to live
this? As I have considered these things and grown in my choosing the truth and
reality of God’s good intent towards me, I have found it remarkably possible to
lean, trust and wait even in the midst of things that aren’t quite moving
forward the way that I expected and even when I look comically awkward in the
middle of it all. I make life decisions and take steps based on what I
understand, as best I am able at the moment but I’ve learned more about holding
these decisions loosely with the confidence and certainty of God’s good intent
towards me even when that takes those plans seems to leave them kind of
hanging.
As I reflect on what has and hasn’t happened that I had
expected this past year I find that many of the things that I’d been looking
toward…the beginning of Potter’s Wheel, completing my training as a Spiritual
Director, and finding a job as a hospice chaplain have all happened. Almost none of it has happened in quite the
way, order or timing that I had thought I expected at the beginning of
2012. God has been so gracious in
helping me in learning more and more about holding the reins loosely and falling
deeper into the great truth of God’s love and good intent towards me. So, as I begin this new year I’m still as
wobbly as I often am but the young, discovering steps into this new year finds
me much more peaceful and confident in my wobbling.
I am so grateful that you have been willing to join me in
this journey. Your prayers have meant
more to me than I’ll ever be able to tell you.
Your encouragement has served so often to be the cup of cold water that
I’ve needed in some of the moments that have felt most difficult. So, I’m
looking forward to journeying with you as we move into this new year and as God
continues to mold us as we’re…
Living on the Potter’s Wheel!
God’s Peace,
Mary
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