He Is Who He Is

Let's say that yesterday, I took a pottery class. I was sitting at the wheel molding my clay, changing it, sometimes making it look worse before it looked better, and the clay yelled at me, "Why are you doing that? It should be more like this! I don't like what you're doing!" That would be so absurd, the clay objecting to what the potter was doing. It doesn't make any sense. The clay doesn't get an opinion.

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! Jeremiah 18:5-6

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory Romans 9:20-23

But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand. Isaiah 64:8

Read those passages again, maybe a few times. The Romans 9 verses certainly get to me. God can do whatever He wants. We probably won't understand it, and sometimes we may not like it, but He is the Lord, and we do not get an opinion. Just as the clay asking the potter what he is doing is a completey absurdity, so it is that we believe we have the audacity to demand exactly what we want from God.



This is my prayer:
Have Thine Own Way, Lord
Adelaide Pollard (1862-1934)

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, Saviour 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!




Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” Exouds 3:13-14

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9