a Love Story – the Potter – February 7 –
a LOVE STORY
February 7th, 2021
The Potter
Isaiah 64:4-8, ‘Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God beside You, Who acts on behalf of those who wait on Him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember Your ways. But when we continued to sin against You, You were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on Your Name or strives to lay hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us and have given us over to our sins. Yet, You, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay and You are the Potter; we are all the work of Your hands (NIV).’
The workmanship of His creativity had resulted in a Master-Peace. I was fashioned with eternity in mind from the second He breathed life into my lungs and hope into my heart. His hands were weathered, fingers gnarled by lifetimes of fashioning something out of nothing, and His eyes sought all the way through time to find mine. I had tried to crawl out of His grasp the day He entered His workshop in search of me. I had crept to the very back corner of that workbench, curled in a tight crevice while the Son shone through the stained windows and ate the darkness. I was besot by the rich tones of His unspoken love. Like a blank canvas, my being began to take shape as I was drawn with a pen of loving kindness by this Creator. All the hollow spaces within me filled as my soul began to graze on grace, and radiance I hadn’t known existed inside of myself before at once spilled from all my broken places. Existence took on new meaning that very day as this Master Potter brought all the dead pieces in me to life, just me and the whirr of His wheel and the gentle touch of His timeless palms.
But it didn’t take long. In the beginning, I anticipated my Creator constantly; I couldn’t wait for Him to appear each day! Excitedly, I awaited His arrival, clearing our space for time together, and He would come in and hang out with me and I with Him. He had captivated me. I thought, ‘This surely is Love!’ My heart overflowed with gratitude for Him, and I grew in stature, and then knowledge. Suddenly I heard these whispers around me, and I didn’t like what I was hearing, but I was so curious I didn’t want to block it out. What if the rumors were true and I wasn’t anything more special than they? Had the Master Potter lied to me?! He had imbued within me that I was a Masterpiece, one of a kind beauty, a rare creation, highly favored and adored, infused with Him alone. Then I entertained what I heard; I just had to know. And all too soon everything I heard screamed much louder than what He whispered deep inside of me.
The day my eyes were opened, I felt tricked, and when I heard Him walking, I hid. Right back to that crack in the furthest corner of the bench; behind the smallest knothole, I made myself tiny. I didn’t want my Creator to see me and I surely didn’t want to see Him. The weathered door marred with living, the one where grace swung freely on rusted hinges, slammed shut, and I felt a life sentence fill the shop. “Who told you?” was all He said before His voice broke. “Who told you?” again He whispered as He got down on His knees to He seek me in my hiding place.
A scale fell off like I had been blinded. At once, it was too bright and I couldn’t keep my eyes from blinking away the glare. His pain was raw and every lie I had been told was reconciled with just that one glimpse as I saw my forever in His Plan. I couldn’t believe what I saw when I saw me through His eyes, a hundred billion ways in which His heart had dreamt me and fashioned and sculpted me, ten thousand reasons why, and as He reached through time toward the place of my retreat, I reached back, and I felt His hand, wrinkled by life, wrap itself around mine while He pulled me to Him.
During the month of February,
come with me as we JOURNEY through
the greatest LOVE STORY ever written.
