Jeremiah 18:4 – Good Still to be Grasped
4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.
"My dreams," confesses Hillsong in "Every Little Thing" "are small compared to Yours." To Hillsong's perpetual bounce, and Todd Agnew's baritone rumbling in "If You Wanted," "At least down here, I know what we're chasing, and it's hard to trust that Your dreams are so much better than mine."
That's the resonance of the word good in Jeremiah 18:4. That's the surprising validation that causes me to pause over the frame story before moving on to the message directly from the Lord. Jeremiah, veteran of visions, lingers here over the theology reflected in vocation.
Keeping off haste, Jeremiah watches not just the potter's work but the potter himself. If anyone has license to give up on good theology reflected through God's erstwhile image-bearers it's this off-rejected prophet who has complained that his every interaction with people is contentious. Yet, in this instance, it is curiosity that is contagious.
He's watching the aspect and attitude of the potter as he goes about his work. When the steady professional discover the flaw in his material, he adjusts. Intense and emotional Jeremiah must've noticed the absence of despair, the adjustment to what seemed to the uninitiated to be Plan B, and, wonderfully, that Plan B seemed GOOD to the potter.
His shoulders, apparently, didn't slump. His hands were still steady. His expression didn't darken. He was still about GOOD work, good in the same tradition as his Creator's work in the Garden of Eden before the fall.
Are we prepared for a moving, submitted definition of good according to our Creator's pleasure? Are we prepared with Hillsong to trade small dreams for what, in God's eyes, are bigger ones, to, with Agnew, surrendered to the fact that God's dreams might be better than ours?
Can we incorporate that equipoise into our thinking before the potter's wheel of this day starts spinning, because once it does, our habit toward quick vexation, toward small doses of despondency does also?
Surely, brothers and sisters in Christ, we await His ultimate pronouncement over us of, well done, GOOD and faithful servant. We would have no man or woman, no measure of progress on Earth take that place.
Yet, I sense He delivers whispers and foreshadowings of His pleasure with us and our work along life's way. Would He concerned with His hearers dropping for want of physical nourishment really failed to attend to our spirits in a world where He knows discouragement is offered at every port?
Ours, then, is to catch glimpses of our purpose in the potter's work, or the parent's, or the programmer's. Ours is to see the grace that intervenes between the total frustration and purposelessness we deserve according to Genesis 3's dictate and our actual experience which often shows the goodness of God's designs in and through us, even in this world.
For, be warned, if we maintain a sense that He is always alternating between actively vexed and vaguely disappointed, if we never take to heart Scripture's assurance that His face SHINES upon us, we will console ourselves with reassurance outside Him which will increase our sense of alienation.
"My dreams," confesses Hillsong in "Every Little Thing" "are small compared to Yours." To Hillsong's perpetual bounce, and Todd Agnew's baritone rumbling in "If You Wanted," "At least down here, I know what we're chasing, and it's hard to trust that Your dreams are so much better than mine."
That's the resonance of the word good in Jeremiah 18:4. That's the surprising validation that causes me to pause over the frame story before moving on to the message directly from the Lord. Jeremiah, veteran of visions, lingers here over the theology reflected in vocation.
Keeping off haste, Jeremiah watches not just the potter's work but the potter himself. If anyone has license to give up on good theology reflected through God's erstwhile image-bearers it's this off-rejected prophet who has complained that his every interaction with people is contentious. Yet, in this instance, it is curiosity that is contagious.
He's watching the aspect and attitude of the potter as he goes about his work. When the steady professional discover the flaw in his material, he adjusts. Intense and emotional Jeremiah must've noticed the absence of despair, the adjustment to what seemed to the uninitiated to be Plan B, and, wonderfully, that Plan B seemed GOOD to the potter.
His shoulders, apparently, didn't slump. His hands were still steady. His expression didn't darken. He was still about GOOD work, good in the same tradition as his Creator's work in the Garden of Eden before the fall.
Are we prepared for a moving, submitted definition of good according to our Creator's pleasure? Are we prepared with Hillsong to trade small dreams for what, in God's eyes, are bigger ones, to, with Agnew, surrendered to the fact that God's dreams might be better than ours?
Can we incorporate that equipoise into our thinking before the potter's wheel of this day starts spinning, because once it does, our habit toward quick vexation, toward small doses of despondency does also?
Surely, brothers and sisters in Christ, we await His ultimate pronouncement over us of, well done, GOOD and faithful servant. We would have no man or woman, no measure of progress on Earth take that place.
Yet, I sense He delivers whispers and foreshadowings of His pleasure with us and our work along life's way. Would He concerned with His hearers dropping for want of physical nourishment really failed to attend to our spirits in a world where He knows discouragement is offered at every port?
Ours, then, is to catch glimpses of our purpose in the potter's work, or the parent's, or the programmer's. Ours is to see the grace that intervenes between the total frustration and purposelessness we deserve according to Genesis 3's dictate and our actual experience which often shows the goodness of God's designs in and through us, even in this world.
For, be warned, if we maintain a sense that He is always alternating between actively vexed and vaguely disappointed, if we never take to heart Scripture's assurance that His face SHINES upon us, we will console ourselves with reassurance outside Him which will increase our sense of alienation.
"Are we prepared for a moving, submitted definition of good according to our Creator's pleasure?"
ReplyDeleteI can almost hear the response from our Creator to our inquiries as he sought to stir the redemptive wonder, long since slumbering inside Habakkuk. "Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told" (Hab. 1:5). It seems that along with Jeremiah and Habakkuk we must, with eyes of faith, confess the goodness and righteousness of God's dealings with the world and, consequently, us.
Certainly difficult when we are on the potter's wheel being shaped and formed. It is easy to question the rationale of God's actions or allowances in the world in most any area. The one that we routinely overlook, however, is our own redemption. Yet God calls us to remember our salvation by his grace and "be confounded" by it's magnitude (Ezek. 16:63). I wonder how much more readily I would submit to God's moving in my life and in the world if I would bask in the vastness of his demonstrated grace over me? Perhaps that would place events in a proper context and restore my own sense of wonder at God's movements.