THE CLAY POT FACTOR

In the Church calendar we commemorate Ash Wednesday annually with its somber reminder of our mortality, “Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). The priest traces a cross on our forehead with ashes from the previous palm fronds we received on Palm Sunday. It is a reminder that we are human and only living temporarily as pilgrims on Planet Earth.

Paul reminds us of the same thing. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels...” (2 Corinthians 4:7). In clay pots, that is. They are breakable, fragile, delicate, flimsy, weak, short-lived, and ultimately and inevitably end up as dust. But within them, within me, is a “treasure” which is Christ indwelling my undying, immortal soul by the Holy Spirit. My body, the clay pot, is destructible but the Treasure is imperishable.

At some unavoidable point, we all must face, I too must face, The Ultimate Change, the Crowning Celebration, the Launch from our particular summit into the Eternal Life To Come. God is preparing us throughout our lives for that day through the transitory aspects of life, the changes, and the instability of human happenings. He keeps us in transition for that Changeover.

SHIFTING SCENE

No life structures last; all will pass.
Adjustments and change
transitions and turning points
crossroads and crises—
nothing stays the same.

It seems that as soon as I’m serene,

God shifts the scene.
He kaleidoscopes my life

upsets my comfort zone
and my settled world
shattering and fragmenting it
into a totally new pattern.

God quicksilvers my human securities
not in careless caprice
but with Divine purpose.
He is in pursuit of my transition
pulling up my temporal, earthly roots
to replant them in a heavenly climate.

So I shall embrace that which deviates
from my comfortable place!
I will ride the wave and joyfully

let Him rearrange my life
and not estrange myself from change:
It is my angelic friend
conducting me along the road
of ultimate transformation
sandpapering me, abrasing

my inclination to petrifaction.

God is intentionally keeping me in motion
preparing me for The Great Change:
my transfiguration
into the person I shall be
when I exchange my mortality
for His image in Eternity!