I am a woodworker. It began as a hobby and is now a small business. Mostly I make canes and “artsy” furniture. I’m old school and do things the old way. There is an old rule for making a horse out of wood: “Start with a tree……remove anything that doesn’t look like a horse.” And that is what I do.
This week I picked out a nice black walnut board and began making a cane. As I removed the “stuff that didn’t look like a cane”, I worked my way down to a defect. It was a split in the wood……and for a cane, it was a fatal flaw. I sawed it up, tossed it into the fireplace and started all over with a new board. I had about $10 in materials and $20 in labor invested in it; but, the cane wasn’t valuable enough to justify the $100 worth of effort it would take to salvage it. It was a good practical decision……and I am a good practical woodworker.
But, then it occurred to me……I am like that piece of walnut. So are you. We look good on the surface. But, when you start peeling away the layers, you begin to encounter flaws, some of them merely cosmetic…… some of them potentially fatal.
We are the raw materials that go into our society, our culture. And God is working with those materials. He is constructing a kingdom here on earth. He has an vision that he is working toward. And that vision is summed up in the two primary rules of the Bible:
Love God……love man.
So, he works away at his workbench……..removing anything that doesn’t look like “Love God……love man”.
And he works his way down to a flaw in the material……my flaw…….or yours. And that is where things change…….where God is different from me.
Instead of tossing me into the fireplace, he uses me……just as I am. He invests the effort and resources necessary to draw something beautiful out of something flawed.
I’m sure that this process will work better if I am fully engaged…….and I try. But, God will use you and me……and all of our flaws……to build something beautiful……..even if we don’t cooperate…….even if we reject him outright.
Why would God continue to invest his effort in working with flawed materials? Why doesn’t he just toss us into the fireplace and start all over?
Because he loves us.
That’s just the way he operates.
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.
Then the word of the Lord came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
Jeremiah 18:1-6, ESV