Do you allow yourself to be molded and shaped by God through your sufferings and trials, as well as through your joys and victories? - Daily Reflections November 30,2014

THE CLAY AND THE POTTER

 

I’ve joined some guided tours in various countries. Part of such tours is always a visit to some factory where they produce handcrafted goods. But there were times I enjoyed such a visit somewhere in France, and another one closer to home in Quezon Province, where they do potteries and ceramics.

    I liked their finished products. But I liked more the process that produced everything on display that were all temptingly beautiful. But in this age of limited baggages at airlines all over the world, one’s decision making has become less difficult. Just don’t add more weight. Period.

       This past week, everything we reflected on seemed to gradually build up to today, the first Sunday of Advent. We talked about endings as much as beginnings — the end times, the final judgment, the Second Coming. Yesterday, we even talked about night being no more, fading into the background, where the light of Christ’s coming comes to the fore.

       Watching the potters’ expert hands mold the once-ugly and dirty clay into something beautiful comes to mind as we begin Advent in earnest. We are worse off than clay, according to Isaiah. We are “sinful; all of us have become like unclean people; all our good deeds are like polluted rags.”

       But the Divine Potter chose to lift us up from the muck, selected us from the mire, on no merit of our own, to make of us something beautiful for Him and for others. But unlike sculpture, where the artist takes away by chipping slowly until the desired shape is achieved, we are not chipped off. We are molded and shaped and enriched until we become what the potter envisioned. How about thanking God today, “for the grace God bestowed on [us] in Christ Jesus, that in him [we] were enriched in every way … so that [we] are not lacking in any spiritual gift?”

       Time now to stop being mere clay. Time now to be molded by the Potter. Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB

 

REFLECTION QUESTION: Do you allow yourself to be molded and shaped by God through your sufferings and trials, as well as through your joys and victories?

 

Thank You, Lord, that You do not throw me away when I displease You. Thank You for patiently shaping me and molding me according to Your design for my life.