pottery

My Purpose Is Growth

/ Gail Johnson / 2 Comments

Trimming the fat, or excess, is the first step to organization. Organization is the first step to discipline. And discipline is the first step to growth.

For me, becoming organized is the first priority. I begin by removing everything that is counterproductive to growth. This isn’t easy at first. After a plan of action, I watch and wait. Then, I decide what is helping or hindering me from achieving my goal. With my decision made, I cut my losses and move ahead.

Once I’m organized, there’s no excuse for being undisciplined. Everything I need is at my fingertips. Therefore, I’m able to concentrate on the job and meet my goals. And the result is growth.

This rule works for my physical and spiritual needs. In the first chapter of his second epistle, Peter tells me through God’s precious promises, Christ’s perfect sacrifice, I have escaped this world. Through these promises, God has given me the ability to grow into a mature vessel. No excuse. Everything is given.

“And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:5-8 KJV)

When reading this passage, I understand that I can’t “add” to what isn’t there in the first place. To obtain these attributes, I must lay aside all that hinders me from spending time with Him. It isn’t enough to have a casual relationship. I crave intimacy.

When I spend time waiting on the Lord my heart’s cry is for Him to search me and know me. Remove all that displeases. Create in me a clean heart. Draw me near. All unnecessary things fade as my heart focuses on Him.

Some say the order of the words is insignificant. Yet, I’ve learned knowledge of right and wrong helps me to practice self-control in all things. With self-control, I learn patience. And if I haven’t affection for others, how can I have Christ-like love? But, if I seek to add all these things, then I’ll not be barren but fruitful and able to make a difference thereby, fulfilling my purpose—growth.

Life quickly become cluttered as I take on more and more. I find myself needing to trim some things to lighten the load. Combining several social media sites is one thing I am in the process of doing. Another is learning to say no.

What do you do to remove the excess?

Centering

/ Gail Johnson / 2 Comments

But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand (Isaiah 64:8 KJV).

Jasper_Ware,_Nelson_Atkins_Museum_of_Art

Jasper Ware Wiki Commons

When I think of pottery, I usually think of the beautifully painted pieces purchased in a store. What I don’t think about is the process clay must go through to become those beautiful pieces.

That was until I saw the similarities between my life and clay.

For instance, have you ever felt as if your world was spinning out of control? I have. For years, I struggled with this problem. Until one day, I realized it wasn’t my world spinning out of control. It was me. I needed anchoring! I needed to quit succumbing to my circumstances and set my eyes on my Deliverer.

In pottery, this process is called centering.

Centering

Wikicommons

Wiki Commons

In centering, the potter moistens the center of the wheel and throws the clay atop it. Then, he smacks the ball of wet earth a couple of times removing the air bubbles from beneath it.

Then he begins “coning” and “flattening” (friction). This process prevents the clay from spinning out of control. The idea is the same as being in the eye of the storm. Read more here...

As a child of God, I’m like a piece of clay. The wheel is my life, the instrument the Potter uses to better mold me. It isn’t the wheel I’m to conform to but the pressure of His hands holding me steady.

As with the piece of clay, the choice is mine. Do I yield to His hands and move upward, or be carried away with the centrifugal force of the wheel and move outward?

Thankfully, I’ve come to realize when I surrender to his hands, I fulfill my design and function. When I succumb to the wheel, I thrash about and eventually shatter from the pressures of my life.

Reflection

Have you ever thought about the similarities of your life and clay? Remember, as His child, you are always in His hands!

Promises: Deuteronomy 31:6; Psalms 46:1; Isaiah 26:3; Jeremiah 32:27

Lord, hear my cry. Help me to see the need of centering in You each day. To daily seek Your face, the Author and Finisher of our faith, for the answers I need. Place within me the desire to transform into Your likeness. Be the center of my life that I may know You and Your will for me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.