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Marriage & The Divine Potter
Jeremiah 18:1-6 (NIV) says, “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me: ‘O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?’ declares the LORD. ‘Like the clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.”
Without a doubt God’s grace is at work in our
marriages when He reshapes a man and a woman into vessels that reflect His glory. He not only can do that with husbands and wives, he can also do it with every individual in every nation. Sometimes, though, we can only hear God’s voice and yield to His divine call after we have seen and heard our lives break into what seems a thousand pieces.
The story is told about a man who was having difficulty communicating with his wife and concluded that she was becoming hard of hearing. So he decided to conduct a little test. One evening, as he sat in a chair on the far side of the room, and her back was to him, he very quietly whispered, “Can you hear me?” There was no response. Moving a little closer, he asked again, “Can you hear me now?” There was still no reply. Quietly, he edged closer and whispered the same words, but still no answer. Finally, he moved right in behind her chair and said, “Can you hear me now?” To his surprise and embarrassment, she responded with irritation in her voice, “For the fourth time, yes!”
Too many times we accuse God of not hearing us when we “shout” to Him about the struggles we are having with our mate. Yet, oftentimes the opposite is true. God is saying back, “Yes, I hear you! But, can you hear me? Can you hear what I am saying to you about you through the imperfections of your mate? Can you see what I need you to see about you through that critical “eye” you have focused on your mate? It is amazing how the “heat” from the difficulties of married life is oftentimes the only thing that can melt the “wax” from our spiritual ears and remove the “scales” from our spiritual eyes.
Yes, the grace-filled hands of the “Divine Potter” are busily “working all things together for good” in your marriage as YOU allow Him to call YOU to His purpose of making YOU more like Jesus. |
