Spring cleaning has hit hard at the Stucky house. We cleaned out the basement last week and this week we conquered the attic. I see window cleaning in our near future. In our cleaning frenzy I found a beautiful pot that has a crack in the bottom. I thought about tossing it in the trash but it’s such an attractive piece. Does the crack make it worthless?
I can relate since I certainly have a few cracks of my own. Do those cracks disqualify me or discredit the less flawed areas of my life?
Paul specifically prayed for the Christians in Philippi to be “sincere and without offense till the day of Christ.” (Philippians 1:10) The word sincere means genuine. One commentator suggests “sincere” may have originally meant “tested by sunlight.” In the ancient world, pottery makers would fill cracks in flawed pottery with wax then glaze and paint the entire vessel making it difficult to judge the quality of the piece. Upon purchase, to avoid being defrauded, the only way to know if the pot was inferior was to hold it up to the sunlight.
I recently had a “sunlight” exposure and sure enough my cracks were revealed.
We can all strive to cover our cracks and make a pretty outward appearance, but once exposed to the sunlight they become obvious.
When the sunlight exposes our sin – instead of covering it with outward appearances – we can go to the heart of the matter. There is a Potter and He is in the business of fixing cracked pots.
8 Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Isaiah 64:8 (NIV)
Rather than striving to hide our flaws, let us expose them to the sunlight and submit to the hand of the Potter!
“Making Pottery” by Photokanok/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Copyright©2014, Gloria Stucky
Very interesting & thoughtful. Good work. Keep it up. Mom