integrity, follow through, and me

pointed...
Someone has said, "Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or
polishes us up depends on the stuff we are made of."

Do you believe this? While the adage may duly encourage the pillars of
personal character and integrity, patience and perseverance, I wonder if
it presents an accurate picture of life. A grindstone mechanically moves
forward changing whatever it touches unknowingly and indifferently. Yet
whether a rock emerges shining or worn down after its encounter with the
grinding wheel is first contingent upon the rock itself. Certain rocks
polish well; others, being too soft to polish, fall to pieces.

It begs the question: What are you made of? Are you strong and solid or
weak and fragile? Will life bring you to pieces or will you come out
gleaming? The image is largely a "get your act together," and "pull
yourself up by the bootstraps" philosophy. It suggests the daunting idea
that if I am only strong enough, I will come out okay; I will come out
shining.

But who has not experienced a time in life when you feel more like a
crumbled mess than a picture of polished solidity? I hear the tender
words of Victor Hugo in Les Miserables on the lips of the dying
Fantine who reflects: "Life has killed the dream I dreamed." We
stirringly relate to her story because we recall those aching moments when
life has made a mess of us, or those regretful moments when it is we who
have made a mess out of life.

A recent news story revealed a girl missing for 10 years who was thought
to be kidnapped or murdered, but who actually had run away from home.
Upset that her mother had said no to something she asked to do, she had
been living in hiding all those years just a few miles from her parent's
house. When asked why she never went home, the girl replied, "Because the
lie had gotten too big."

Who has not felt like this on some scale? I've made a mess and it's
become bigger than me, bigger than I know how to deal with. Perhaps
this is what the psalmist had in mind when he penned the words, "My
iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy
for me" (Psalm 38:4). Yet in the same breath, the psalmist also declares,
"O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you"
(38:9).

Life sometimes leaves us bruised, but it is infinitely more than a
grinding, inanimate wheel. I believe there is a better picture painted
throughout Scripture. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God gives an image
that reminds us that the Author of life does not deal capriciously with
his children. Writes Jeremiah, "I went down to the potter's house, and
there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay
was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel,
as it seemed good to the potter to do" (Jeremiah 18:3-4). This potter did
not throw the clay away because it had crumbled, or because it had become
less than what he intended. He took the spoiled vessel and reworked it.
Perhaps the question is not, what are you made of? But rather,
who is molding you?

As a potter carefully reshapes clay, so God can take our broken lives, the
messes we have made, and make of them something whole--something beyond us.
What God can make of a willing life is a picture to wonder at and a truth
to mull over. You are in these able hands

-not me