Fruitful Muse #14

The grace of re-formation

(28.08.24)

Recently I was praying with a text from the Old Testament prophet,

Jeremiah 18:1-11. In short, the prophet has an instinct to go down to the house of the local potter and to watch him at work.

He notices that sometimes the potter will be making a certain vessel and then reaches a decision to do something different instead. The potter folds up the vessel he has been forming and re-shapes it into something new and different as his creative instincts lead him. Jeremiah gets the sense that God is using this analogy to say something about human formation and God’s relationship to Israel.

 

As I was praying with this text, I experienced what I call a deep consolation and sense of the rhythm of formation in my journey in life.  Here’s what I noticed and felt:

  • My life’s journey has involved a series of definitive seasons and times, each of these has reached an endpoint. Sometimes this arrival has been experienced as gentle, at other times as a rude shock.
  • The time in-between the end of one season and the beginning of the next has always felt uncomfortable and confusing at various levels, primarily because what is to come is not yet clear or sure.
  • Often what has eventually emerged as the new season is something quite different from what I had envisaged from my standpoint in the prior season.
  • On reflection, I can see that each season has been fruitful and gracious in its own way and often better than something that I would have planned or chosen.
  • Looking back, I can see the hand of God at work in and through what seemed to have often be random events and happenstance.
  • This leaves me with the feeling that it is actually God who is doing the shaping and the forming and the choosing of the different contexts in which I live and offer my gifts to the world.
  • This allows me to rest and trust in the flow of events, past, present, and future, and to believe that something beautiful and good is the inevitable outcome.
  • It encourages me and affirms me in keeping my heart and mind soft, supple, flexible, allowing, and cooperating with the process of divine formation.

I trust and pray that some element of the above may be of some consolation to you also.

Peace.

A message from the Author
In a quiet space, prayerfully read the text of Jeremiah 18:1-11. Take note of anything that stands out or has a particular energy for you. As you review your own journey in life are you able to identify the seasons? Where do you see the points in your journey where one trajectory folds and comes to an end? What did it feel like to experience these folding points? What do you notice about what has emerged? If each of the stages in your journey represented some kind of pottery implement (vase, jug, bowl, plate, cup … ) how might you name them? What beauty and service have each of these stages or seasons offered to the world? How have these stages and seasons served you? Following whatever parts of this review you feel led to complete, turn to God and speak to God as one friend would to another, saying whatever is on your heart.
Dr Phil Daughtry