Daily Devotional for September 18, 2013

Isaiah 64:8
You, Lord, are our Father.
   We are nothing but clay,
but you are the potter
    who molded us.
 
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
 
Timothy and Zola love to play with Play-doh®.  Timothy, especially, likes to “make things” out of his.  Zola is more content to just roll “snakes” or “eggs”.  Sometimes I will make her a little “basket” and she puts her “eggs” into it.  Sometimes, she tries to eat the clay!  But Timothy wants sculptures… dinousaurs, “cuckoo birds” (a reference to an episode of Jack’s Big Music Show® on NickJr®).  The Play-doh® is nothing more than a colorful blob in the can… until we transform it into something recognizable or purposeful.  And what we make is our choice… and only as good as the skills of the creator whose hands form it.
 
There is no stretch to imagining where I am headed with this one!  As the scripture points out, God is the Potter… we are the Play-doh®.  God ultimately chooses how we will be fashioned and molded… but He allows us to dictate the options to a large degree.  Just as Timothy will say, “Make another ‘cuckoo bird’,” when I was thinking we might make something else… we tell God, “I think I will do this or that.”  And most of the time, He allows us to wander down the path of our own choosing… at least for awhile.
 
The neat thing about Play-doh® is that generally, nothing created with it is permanent.  Yes, creations can be allowed to air dry and become hard and rigid… just as our own hearts can harden for the long haul.  But just because we have made a decision that doesn’t line up with God’s… or chosen a path that ran counter to His desires for our lives… doesn’t mean we cannot change.  We can ask God to mold us again… to reform us into something more pleasing and beautiful…to “Have Thine Own Way, LORD”, as the old hymn pleads.
 
Where do you need a little “remodeling” today?  Where have you chosen to be molded into something that was not what God had in mind?  Are you beginning to harden around the edges?  It’s not too late… there is still time to ask God to “mold me and make me after Thy will”.  Won’t you take a look at the “sculpture” that is your life and see where you might need to ask Him for a little do-over?
 

Have Thine Own Way, LORD
Adelaide A. Pollard, 1907 ~ Public Domain

 

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.

 

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow. 

 

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me, I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine.

 

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me.

 

©2013 Debbie Robus