He Won’t Leave Us This Way

One of my favorite toys to play with as a child was play-doh. It was soft, smooth and moldable, oh how I loved it so. I could shape a little person out of it, a couch, or even rolls of spaghetti and meatballs. I could spend hours making all these little things and then SMASH it and then starting all over again. One dreadful day, I opened my bottle of play-doh and it was just shoved in the container carelessly! I know I didn’t do that, it had to be my younger brother who had the tendency of getting into my things. I took out the dough gently and laid it on the table. I noticed it was not as soft as it was before. I gathered all the pieces together and started to work it as I had the first time but it was not the same, something was wrong. It was clear that when my pesky brother was playing with it, it was not a clean surface so the dough had tiny grains of dirt and hair. I could not do as I wanted with the dough as before. I had to pull out all those grains of dirt meticulously, then I had to take out the little pieces of hair. I started working it again but then I had to stop because I found another particle. When it was clear I got everything out, I had to add a little bit of water to my hands to help return the dough back to what it was before.

After I gave my heart to the Lord, like this dough, God was not in the business of leaving me the way I was. He loved me and so He wasn’t going to leave me marred. He could do nothing with me until he pulled out those things that were keeping me from being that vessel.

I was a very angry person when I came to the Lord. I was bullied in school because I was small, but I would not step down from a fight. My father instilled in me that I needed to solve my problem with my peers with my fists. Soon, I became the bully and turned into the predator instead of the prey. My heart was aching for love and acceptance so this was one of my outlets for my rage. It was also what made me feel like I had some kind of control. I was a little girl who was not being heard.

Facing The Truth

Anger was just one of the things I struggled with the most and it was the first thing God wanted to take out of me. How was he going to do that when I lived in a world of anger? Well, God made me face my Achilles’ Heel. The first question was, “Who am I angry with?”I realized that the one I was upset with was my parents and myself. I faced the truth that my father hated me and I was never going to have a real father-daughter relationship. Also, I had to come to the reality that my mother was always going to choose to be clueless of my hurt. She was my everything, but too busy to notice. With all of this, I needed to turn my affections towards God. My parents were broken themselves and they were a product of their brokenness.
I also realized I was angry with myself for not being like other little girls. I was mean, nasty, manipulative, dishonest and rough. I saw my flaws every time I looked in the mirror. I absolutely hated everything about me. I wanted out of this world so bad. I wanted to kill myself at the age of nine. God started to show me how He saw me, and the thing I labeled as a “flaw” He saw as something He could use. He slowly and meticulously helped me remove those destructive thoughts I had about myself and he replaced it with hope in Him.

Trusting The Hand Of The Potter

What was the most challenging thing about God removing these things? I had to trust Him. You see, like the play-doh I was not useable with those particles. I needed God to take time to remove everything that hindered him from molding me. What keeps us from trusting God? Jeremiah 18:2-6 gives us a little hint. Let’s substitute “Israel” with our names:

18 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.”3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel.4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me.6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Marsha, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Marsha”. (NIV)

The word “marred” means… “destroyed, devastated, ruined”. To be this vulnerable in the hands of God is more than we can handle. Also it is in verse 4 that the clue to our lack of trust is rooted… “shaping it as seemed best to HIM.” This verse scares anyone because we are not in control of what shape God makes us into, like my play-doh was not in control of what I did. Let’s look at one more verse, Romans 9: 20-21:

“But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some of the common use?” (NIV)

We would love to hear from you in the comments below… What questions come to your mind when you think of God shaping you as HE sees fit… (i.e. “What if I don’t like how he tries to make me?” “What about my desires” “How come I don’t get a choice?” or “Can I really trust him with my broken heart?”)What is keeping you from trusting in God? What are you too afraid to give up because it gives you a false sense of protection? I would love to hear from you. What are some other reasons you feel that we struggle with trusting in God? Also if you would like to hear more about my testimony read my book, “The Threshing: A Weapon Forged by Fire.” Sign up here to read the first three chapters for free! You can also buy the full book on Amazon!