Supreme Potter

Before we begin this brief study let’s think about these questions:

What goes into making lemonade? In most places it is sugar, water, lemon

What about bread? Flour, water, yeast, raw eggs, heat

One can easily see that ingesting any one of the raw materials alone, with the exception of water, does not make for very good eating. Some of the ingredients by themselves may taste good, but others may taste bad. Yet when both good and bad tasting ingredients are mixed properly the outcome is generally palatable. We may think about this as an analogy to our lives. During our lifetimes all of us experience some good times that we deeply want to remember and try to relive in our minds. On the other hand, most of us also experience some bad times that we would just as well forget. Certainly, during our times of crisis we cannot understand how God can let those bad things happen to us. We would only want good to happen in our lives. But just like lemonade and bread are created from a careful mixture of good and bad tasting ingredients, God so molds us out of bitter and sweet experiences.

First, let’s read through LUKE 8:40-56. Here, we see a father who is suffering from the devastation of having to watch his 12 year old daughter die. We also see a woman who has been suffering from an apparently incurable hemorrhage that she has endured for 12 years and has caused her to spend all her money. The woman’s money is all gone and in a bout of faith and desperation she reaches out to touch the only source of hope she has for a cure: Jesus. To that action he turns and says to her (v.48) "….’Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.’" Those suffering from the death of the 12 year old showed utter hopelessness. A certain person (v. 49) said, "Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the teacher any longer." Wouldn’t this be also what we would feel? Despair, anguish, and doubt. Would we be tormenting ourselves thinking what we could have done better? But along comes Jesus and with the prayer of the Son of God heals the afflicted.

The actions of Jesus, raising the little girl from the dead and curing the incurable woman, created greater benefits than just the miracles by themselves.

The world benefited: This translated to a greater glory for GOD in that the word was spreading at the time and a story was written for our generation.

Faith benefited: for those healed and those witnessing.

And, of course the individual benefited: Compassion and care through healing of individuals.

But, what about all the other people suffering in the general region where Jesus performed the miracles and were not healed of their afflictions. Should we say that those two women were lucky Jesus was nearby and that God forgot all others who were not in the same general area?

Let’s look at ROMANS 9:14-24. "…I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."

Especially v. 16: "So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy."

Suffering and agony are a part of what we are as humans, though suffering is relative, and to some extent even agony is relative. We may even say that these things were ordained from the beginning of mankind: GENESIS 3:17-19

YES, EVEN FOR JESUS CHRIST

ISAIAH 53- Especially v. 10 and 11

Jesus was just like us: a Human. Deity made flesh indeed – as son of the living God- he defeated Satan and never succumbed to the vices of this world, though tempted just like us. Yet he was not a superhuman in terms of physical and emotional attributes. He felt the pain of the nails and thorns piercing his skin, the anguish of ridicule and humiliation of rejection from his own people. And when he was nailed to the cross, he even felt the despair of knowing he was reaching the height of his human limits. MATTHEW 27:46 "Eli, Eli Lema Sabacthani (why have you forsaken me)" [Psalms 22:1]

Do you think this would be the same despair we would feel when we:

Cannot pay our bills

Have a loved one lost

Have a spouse that leaves us

Have an incurable painful disease

Our friends forsake us

We find no other way out of a mess?

Let’s look to Christ for guidance in what he did next. LUKE 23:46 "Into your hands I commend my spirit." [Psalms 31:5]. And so chapter 53 of Isaiah was closed in accordance to God’s grand plan. Jesus, though human like us, never gave up his confidence in God. You see his greater love for God, and his fulfillment of the promise to all of us that would be a result from all his suffering, persisted through his human existence. He truly lived the words mentioned in HABAKKUK 3:17-19.

Just as Jesus as a human endured bad times, we should expect that we also have to endure all that this carnal world throws our way. We do not know the ways of the Lord or how our lives will be shaped, but we do know God has a hand in our making.

Going back to the analogy of the lemonade and the bread. God takes the bitterness and bad tasting episodes of our lives and combines them with our good episodes to make the person that we are. Who are we to question his divine plan?

ISAIAH 29:16 "…Shall the potter be regarded as the clay?…"

ISAIAH 45:9 " ….does the clay say to the one who fashions it, "What are you making?…"

As the hymn says, he molds us and makes us. All the bad experiences we have:

guilt from our past life,

our anxieties,

our heaviness in spirit,

our fears,

our pains: physical and emotional.

These are all the prime ingredients that become mixed in just the right amounts with the good times in our lives:

our children,

a marriage,

a good friend,

joy in the Lord,

when we help those in need.

And in the end God looks down at us and says " BEHOLD, IT IS GOOD".

(this article contributed by Jorge Monreal)