I've been reading a book I got for Christmas - "Hungry for God" by Margaret Feinberg. I started reading in fear and trembling because so many books on getting to know God are so incredibly NOT about getting to know Him but getting to know more ABOUT Him. Knowledge I have. What I lack is experience.
Anyway, this book didn't turn out to be as I feared. It talks about the mundane things of our lives and how God uses them to reveal Himself to us through them. If we listen.
One analogy she uses in her book - one which is not original to her of course - is the one about the clay and the potter. But she happens to mention the part that is so easily overlooked about creating a piece of pottery. It's the first part - the part a potter calls 'centering'.
The potter doesn't just plunk down the clay and start to make a pot or a vase right away. The first part after smacking it down on the wheel, is holding the clay in a lump as the wheel turns beneath it, squeezing it toward the middle of the wheel, making sure it is perfectly in the inner circle of the wheel, even before the clay has an inside part. The potter keeps adding water, squeezes some more, and shifts the clay on the wheel until it seems to be standing still even though the wheel is still spinning. This is to make the clay pliable and to prevent disaster later on from the creation being off-center.
And yet the pot cannot hold anything yet because it doesn't have an opening. Any water poured onto it would just slide off. The potter wants to make sure that the clay is where it needs to be, first and foremost. He tests it by squishing it down with the heel of his hand. Then squeezing it toward the middle so that it's tall. Then down again. Then up. The clay - if it could think - might wonder what in the world was becoming of it. Yet all this time it is being shaped, and its goodness is being slimed all over the potter's fingers, sinking into his pores, under his nails. The potter is inexorably connected to and involved in his creation.
Only then, only after the clay is perfectly centered and pliable, is it ready to be "opened" - the potter squishes the lump again, the clay's outside becomes the general shape that was intended, and then the thumb starts pressing down in the very center of the lump - "opening" the clay and creating an inside that will make the piece usable.
There are quite a few steps involved in pottery, but the one that stood out for me is the centering. Again I stress that as the clay in this analogy, we cannot be 'opened' until we are 'centered.' And it's all God's work including adding water (which symbolizes His divine presence being infused into us); He is the one who does it, we are only available to Him. He works a work on the wheel of our lives (which HE set in motion) and it is HIS choice how long that takes or what shape will eventually be produced.
It's messy. It's uncomfortable sometimes. There's a lot of pressure. It takes a long time. And it's necessary.
Totally.
Anyway, this book didn't turn out to be as I feared. It talks about the mundane things of our lives and how God uses them to reveal Himself to us through them. If we listen.
One analogy she uses in her book - one which is not original to her of course - is the one about the clay and the potter. But she happens to mention the part that is so easily overlooked about creating a piece of pottery. It's the first part - the part a potter calls 'centering'.
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| Source (via Google Images): http://pottery.about.com/od/centeringonthewheel/ ss/centering_2.htm |
And yet the pot cannot hold anything yet because it doesn't have an opening. Any water poured onto it would just slide off. The potter wants to make sure that the clay is where it needs to be, first and foremost. He tests it by squishing it down with the heel of his hand. Then squeezing it toward the middle so that it's tall. Then down again. Then up. The clay - if it could think - might wonder what in the world was becoming of it. Yet all this time it is being shaped, and its goodness is being slimed all over the potter's fingers, sinking into his pores, under his nails. The potter is inexorably connected to and involved in his creation.
Only then, only after the clay is perfectly centered and pliable, is it ready to be "opened" - the potter squishes the lump again, the clay's outside becomes the general shape that was intended, and then the thumb starts pressing down in the very center of the lump - "opening" the clay and creating an inside that will make the piece usable.
There are quite a few steps involved in pottery, but the one that stood out for me is the centering. Again I stress that as the clay in this analogy, we cannot be 'opened' until we are 'centered.' And it's all God's work including adding water (which symbolizes His divine presence being infused into us); He is the one who does it, we are only available to Him. He works a work on the wheel of our lives (which HE set in motion) and it is HIS choice how long that takes or what shape will eventually be produced.
It's messy. It's uncomfortable sometimes. There's a lot of pressure. It takes a long time. And it's necessary.
Totally.
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