God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
-C.S.Lewis
Lord I want to thank You for my thorns. It is through my brokenness and through my pain that I am able to hear You.
The LORD gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.” So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. Then the LORD gave me this message: “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.
-Jeremiah 18:1-6
Jesus crush me into a lump. Start over in me. I want to turn out as You had hoped. If I do not hear Your whispers or Your words then please shout to me through thorns. I am clay in Your hands. O God I want nothing of this Earth to possess my heart. No person, no activity, no object, nothing. I want to offer You my heart, wholly. Build my house on the rock.
A merciful man aims at his neighbour's good and so does 'God's will', consciously co-operating with the simple good. A cruel man oppresses his neighbour, and so does simple evil. But in doing such evil, he is used by God, without his own knowledge or consent, to produce the complex good so that the first man serves God as a son, and the second as a tool. For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.
-C.S.Lewis
I wonder if she talks to You about me. Through her simple evil You will produce complex good.
I don't believe this was your will for us.
I don't believe you intended us to be torn apart.
I do believe that You will redeem this.
Jesus I thank You for your redemption. Thank You for being the redeeming God. I know this truth, Your purpose will prevail. Your purpose is good for You are good.
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
-Romans 8:28
Although I do not understand this pain, although I do not understand my brokenness, I trust in Your unfailing love, Your unfailing faithfulness, and Your goodness. Lord do not relent. Continue to refine me in Your furnace continue to crush me on Your potter's wheel. Continue to shout to me through pain. Create in me the leader You had hoped. Show me how to lead, serve, and lift up the men You've entrusted to me. Show me how to lead, serve, and lift up the pour and powerless. Lord let my voice speak Your words on behalf of my invisible brothers and sisters of not just this city but this world. Use my hands to love Your forgotten children: orphans, imprisoned, homeless, elderly, and broken. I am Yours, I lay myself down. Spend this life of mine however in order to display Your love to the unloved. Help me display the love You've shown me.
I am clay in Your hands.
Your hands that shape the world
Are holding me, they hold me still
Your Hands - JJ Heller