From Dust of the Earth to Clay Vessels
Clay, formed from the dust of the earth, is the unadorned essence of all earthy substances. No dust particle is more precious or worthy than any other. Dust exists as unformed nothingness, “formless and void.” Yet from this weightless particle God gathered us, formed, sculpted, and shockingly envisioned us as the Divine dwelling place, a place to call home — on earth as it is in heaven. Then, with an intimate kiss, Holiness breathed life into this form, and with a gasping first breath, we stepped into the human life journey as living souls, bounded by dimensions of time and space, marked by seconds, minutes, hours, days, and seasons where we experience both duty and delight and are marked forever as image-bearers of God’s glory.
We struggle to embrace the reality that we exist within the duality of the Holy and the Human. We are limited in our earthen vessels as fragile, breakable, and subject to the fires that make it possible for clay to become useful and beautiful. And as beings formed from dust, we know what it is to thirst for something more. Lots to unpack in each of these elements: Fragile, Fired, Thirsty. But in such an existence, God waits to help us experience a unified soul-identity of body, mind and spirit. The invitation is to willingly say yes to the formation of life as living sacrifice, to become yielded and still.
In the thirsting we yield to the emptiness, to the formless voids begging for living water. In the fire we yield to the troubles, and traumas of life, asking Jesus how to follow him more closely with the crosses we must bear. And in the fragility, we yield the broken, jagged edges of the soul that need smoothing out to live at peace within ourselves and in the world. We learn to pray, “May it be to me according to your word,” and allow God-glory to pour through our souls like water flowing from clay vessels.
How are you experiencing life as a vessel formed by God? Are you thirsting for something more? Are you in the fires that are testing your soul? What grace do you seek during this season? Are you noticing the broken pieces or sharp edges of the soul? These are the questions we bring to spiritual direction, to lay out as an offering, to observe, and wonder, and pray over. I invite you to contact me to explore how spiritual direction might impact your experience of God at work in your life.
May you know joy in the yielding, and peace in the stillness.
