A profound message motivated me to consider reconstructive surgery recently. I did not want to change my appearance by removing or enhancing some physical attribute, nor did I need to repair some broken or injured body part and restore its proper functionality.
I was motivated to undergo reconstructive surgery of my inner man, a spiritual refreshing, tightening, lifting up, and general makeover. But even in this type of process, like a physical surgery, I will need an anesthesia.
The biblical example provided was the potter and the clay. The point was that the clay sits on the potter’s wheel and the potter reworks the clay into the vessel he wants it to be. Like reconstructive surgery, the potter sometimes must remove pieces that no longer fit his image or are not needed for the finished product.
Other times the potter must take from one part of the clay and add it to another area, to strengthen, and reinforce. These alterations may ultimately change the shape and capacity of the vessel, but they are the potter’s choice to make.
Through it all, the clay sits and allows the potter to work. For the clay, it is a seemingly unending cycle of spinning, and being reshaped through various methods at the hands of the potter.
The anesthesia becomes important to me because I am not inanimate like that clay. I have feelings, opinions, ideas, and even an agenda that must be de-sensitized to the need for surgery. But like the clay, I will not change on my own. I need the potter’s touch.
Anesthesia is temporary. It is designed to shield you from the pain and processes of surgery, which can be forceful and unpleasant. But successful surgeries also bring about healing, another process that can be painful.
I often choose the anesthesia of food, sleep, television, or other benign forms of escape, that temporarily shields me from the symptoms requiring surgery, but do not require me to actually undergo that painful process. While I may escape the pain, I do not change, or heal.
God has provided an anesthesia, namely His presence, which allows me to be temporarily shielded from the painful process of spiritual surgery, and then helps in the healing process as well.
When I worship, when I pray, when I read His word, or fellowship with other believers, I can spend that time in His presence and allow Him to cut away some stuff, add some stuff, or just reshape some stuff in me. It allows me to respond to my need to change, and to heal.
His presence shields me from the pain, the forceful, unpleasant processes that bring about change from the inside out. For it can render me like the clay, willing to be still and allow Him to mold me as He sees fit.
His presence reigns over my feelings, opinions, and agenda, acting as the anesthesia that allows me to become what He desires, a vessel fit for the master’s use.
Everyday God... 