God is the Potter/God is the Purifier

I'm combining the posts for the weekend into one since it's so late.  Today, Saturday, God is the Potter.  Isaiah 64:8 says "Yet you, LORD, are our Father.  We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand."  This verse reminds us that He is the one who created all things, including us; He knit us together in our mothers' wombs; He spoke and man was created in His image.

The image of the potter evokes someone sitting at a potter's wheel, kneading and working the clay with His hands.  Isn't that what God does?  Works on us, perfecting and refining us, until we are just right.  It's interesting that our just right isn't His just right.  We keep trying to change this thing He made - we use science to change the shape of our bodies, makeup to change the look of our faces, fashion to be accepted by others.  But what He has made is perfect.  What will it take for us to accept ourselves in HIS light?

Not that we shouldn't always strive to be better, to learn and grow and change.  We are sinful creatures, after all.  But let's make sure that we are allowing HIM to do the changing, not just doing it for ourselves.

God is also the Purifier, as found in Malachi 3:3:  "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver."  Interesting that to "purify" means to "free from sin, guilt, or other defilement.  "Purifier" means "a device or substance that frees something of extraneous, contaminating, or debasing matter."

We can look for something to purify us, to change us, make us different.  Or we can rely on the Purifier to free us of those things that contaminate us!

This month's theme for one of my Bible studies is "renewal."  But renewal as in make goals, take action, change your life.  Renewal as in sit back, look to God, and allow Him to do with you what He wills.  Sometimes, that's a lot harder than making goals and taking action!  God's purifying can take a lot longer than our own.  But His purifying lasts longer and stronger and changes us in His ways, not our ways.

I think that's the kind of purifying I'm interested in.  How about you?