Take my Life

But now, O Lord,

You are our Father;

We are the clay, and You are the potter;

And all we are the work of Your hand.

Isaiah 64:8

I went with my girls and a friend to see the pottery in Seagrove. We got to watch a potter making several different things from a lump of clay, from a beautiful bowl, to a pie dish, to a vase. It seemed so easy! I could not help but think of the symbolism God uses in the Bible to teach us that we are His creation and He will use us and make us into whatever He fashions. It is not for us to say what our lives will be and how they will turn out. While watching the potter, he would start forming something and my mind would quickly imagine what it was going to be, only to find out he was making something totally different. It is like that in our lives. Sometimes we think we know what God is doing and what our lives will turn out to be like. Then something changes and our lives go in a different direction than we thought. Some times it is hard but God is forming us into His image and He is changing us. The potter said he could even take object he made that was already dried and he can make it into something totally different, by crushing it up into powder adding water and making back into a lump of clay. I have felt like a piece of pottery that has been crushed into powder and felt useless for anything. But God took that powder and He is watering it with His word and His love and His grace. He is forming me into something new. I pray that God will help me to trust Him all the way through this life as He forms me and shapes me through His word, through prayer, through serving Him, through suffering and pain and joy and through the lives of those I love. When you watch the potter forming the clay it seems so silly to think that the clay has any say in it or that it would complain about what the potter made. Yet that is what we do. We complain and fear and get discouraged because God is not doing what we thought and not making us and those we love into the objects we thought he would. But clay is just there submitting to the potter and is formed easily into what he desires. God is our potter and we are the works of His hands. When we asked the potter how he decided what he was going to make, his reply was simple, he makes what is needed. So my pray is that God would make me into the vessel that is needed for His glory.

This hymn by Frances R. Havergal expresses that thought. Lord Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord to Thee.

Take my Life and Let it Be- Frances R. Havergal

Take my life and let it be

Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;

Take my hands and let them move

At the impulse of Thy love,

At the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet and let them be

Swift and beautiful for Thee;

Take my voice and let me sing

Always, only, for my King,

Always, only, for my King

Take my lips and let them be

Filled with messages for Thee;

Take my silver and my gold-

Not a mite would I withhold,

Not a mite would I withhold.

Take my love-my God, I pour

At Thy feet its treasure store;

Take myself-and I will be

Ever, only, all for Thee,

Ever, only, all for Thee.