This is an entry straight from my journal! God has really been speaking to me about identity, and I believe He wanted YOU to hear this about yourself too.
Sometimes, I just feel like clay.
I feel sticky, dirty, and like my life is a muddy mess. Like every time I try to fix things, I actually make them worse.
I feel that I can’t touch people, I’ll leave stains on them. I think that my messiness will make other people messy.
I feel like I just get in the way. Like “I’m already clay, the dirt needs God more than me. So I need to stay out of the way so that God can reach more dirt and make it into clay too. I’ll just stay here as the lump of clay I am.”
I think “God’s already done a work in me. So until I get to heaven, I’ll just keep trying to figure out what form I’m supposed to have. I will make myself useful. A creation that the creator can use.”
But did you catch what’s wrong with that? {I WILL MAKE MYSELF USEFUL.}
It doesn’t work that way. It can’t ever!
Isaiah 45:9 “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?”
Every criticism and question I bring to the potter is me trying to determine my own identity and really to determine my value based on my usefulness.
I think I’m stuck just rolling around and trying to turn myself into a cool shape or into something really useful.
A cup. A shovel. A bowl.
The list goes on! Why are none of these shapes sticking?
Have you ever thought that God just wanted to create you for who you are, not for functionality sake?
That, yes, God went to all that work just to create a clay… decoration?
That He delights in YOU so much that after creating you, all He wants of you is to BE?
To be in His house and with Him?
We’re scared.
We hold a fear that just BEING isn’t good enough.
A fear that maybe He won’t use us if we don’t have a hand in what He is turning us into. A fear that maybe if He is given His rightful place as the potter and has full control, that I won’t like what he turns me into because I’m so worried about forcing my own purpose!
But if He promises that His plans for us are abundant, and that He gives us a hope and a future, then what doubt remains?
It takes letting go of EVERYTHING, letting go of who you think you are, who you think you should be, and who you think you’re supposed to be turning into. Because until you let go of the clay, the potter can’t be the potter!
What does that look like for me right now? Letting go of being a runner. But I realized that as much as I’m begging God for more of Him, how can I get that unless I have LESS OF ME? I have to let go of more to receive more. There has to be less of me to make room for more of Him. I have to stop fighting for myself in order to watch Him fight for me.
Until you let go of the clay- stop criticizing it, stop trying to change it, stop messing with it- you will never know what God wants to form it into. What God wants to form YOU into!
But when you do release the clay, all you hold on to, your control of your own life, God can have His way. He can form you into something you could have never imagined. A creation He delights in, JUST BECAUSE IT IS!
Then when He has reformed you into who He says you are, and you let go completely of who you think you are or who you think you should be, He will put you through a fire. A fire that will make your identity permanent. A fire that marks you as His creation. A fire that will solidify your clay structure.
There may be times when you go back into a fire, as God paints on new details and uses fire to make them stay.
But your structure and identity have been set when you release all your holds and let God shape your clay.
And do you believe that God is happy enough with His creation, even if it is only to be enjoyed as part of His house?
He says only to dwell with Him and accept His love and grace- both which have nothing to do with what you make of yourself in this life or how “useful” you see yourself as! No!
It has only to do with knowing that you are a creation of the creator! And you please Him just by existing. You bring Him joy by simply dwelling in His house and being who He made you to be!
So let go of who you think you are for a God who knows exactly who you are.
You are not measured by functionality, but your value rests in the on who formed you and went to great lengths so you could just BE WITH HIM!
Accept that He, as your Creator, just wants you to receive His love!
Knowing that your purpose is to simply be in His presence gives you the freedom to walk not by what you do, but by whose you are.
