“King-God, I need Your help. Every morning You’ll hear me at it again. Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on Your altar and watch for the fire to descend.” (Psalm 5:2-3 MSG)
My family has taken to watching the new Netflix series, “Blown Away.” It’s a reality-competition where glass-blowers with varying experience and expertise come together to try for a $60,000 prize package. My family finds it fascinating, we are mesmerized.
After the challenge has been given, the blowers choose their glass. Some them choose the loose glass; powder or pellets that melt together and turn liquid when heat is applied. With carefully controlled temperatures (hot & cold alike), special tools (paddles, pliers, molds and blowpipes) and their very own breath, the loose glass is liquified and recreated; blown and formed into something fantastic.
I think for a long time I’ve felt like my life was a puzzle; a bunch of random pieces in a box without a photo, something that desperately needed to be assembled. I’ve wondered if the piece count was outside my ability (I don’t love puzzles over 500 pieces, they feel overwhelming). I’ve imagined some saboteur slipping extra pieces in the box, or maybe even removing a few just to infuriate me.
This morning it occurred to me that the pieces of my life aren’t a puzzle for me to solve at all. They are simply pebbles, Not much more than gathered grains of sand, really, to be placed on the alter with blind trust in the heat, skill and breath of the Living God. He will meld and form my offering into something fantastic. I’m not the Master Gaffer in this hot shop, I’m merely the unnamed assistant who responds to the instruction, enthusiasm and vision of the true Artist.
Somehow this feels easier. It’s not our job to figure it out. We don’t have to keep turning the pieces and trying to make them work. Only God has the resources and vision to bring our lives together and when He does, it will be beautiful. Our job is only to cooperate with the process.
“For You, God, have put my life back together.” (Psalm 4:8 MSG)
Lord, today we rest from trying to figure it out. We realize our place and trust Your plan. We push the pieces of our life on to Your altar, confident in Your artistic agenda for the rubble we can’t reassemble. We pledge to cooperate with Your painstaking process; heat, pressure, plying, pulling. We believe Your holy breath will make all the difference. You have a vision that far exceeds our own. Amen.