My Childlike Friend on the Potter’s Wheel

A friend of mine is diagnosed with something the world often looks down and frowns upon. For a long while, I looked down upon my friend for another reason. I had studied the Bible for years; she had just begun. I desperately wanted to please the Lord; she was just finding her way in her walk with Him. I used big, fancy language; she often had little to say. I tried to point her in the right direction with changes I felt God wanted her to make; she resisted. As much as I loved my friend, I often found myself looking down with pride and arrogance; little did I know how my sweet, childlike friend was beginning an amazing journey of learning to look up with precious childlike faith – at the Lord.

photo in background courtesy of pixabay.com

God took a sledgehammer to my pride and began to teach me more about the Kingdom of God. While chunks of my pride began to fall to the ground, He took His tender, loving potter’s hands and placed my dear friend on His potter’s wheel and began to make something beautiful from her simple, developing faith. As I began to learn to look up to Him with the humility I so desperately needed, my eyes fell upon His potter’s wheel and discovered all the wonderful changes He was making in my sweet friend’s life as she learned to submit herself to Him. And then it was I came to see why I believe it is God wants us to have childlike faith.

In my pride, there was not so very much God could do with me. Some, yes. But not enough. In my friend’s childlike humility, He could do great things. She began to call Him Father; I saw that I wanted to but could barely utter the word for fear of what had happened to me long, long ago. My friend became a lump of clay in His hands, reading the Bible daily, speaking to Him as a trusting child does her loving Father, coming to trust Him with her very life, sharing with me in simple language how she was learning to rest in the Father’s hold. My own lump of clay stood a little distance off from His potter’s wheel as I realized that studying the Bible for years, quoting scripture, being in ministry, helping numerous others, etc., ultimately amounted to nothing at all if I would not become as a child with true trust in my Father in heaven.

Jesus was unhappy with the disciples that rebuked the people that brought the children to Jesus for Him to touch them (or attach Himself to them according to the concordance). He explained we need to be as children to enter into the Kingdom of God. Kingdom also means reign and realm according to the concordance. And so it is for the Lord to truly reign in our lives, we need the simple and humble and innocent trust of a child who is willing to crawl up onto the potter’s wheel and look up to the Lord rather than the prideful and arrogant attitude of those of us who have spent far too long standing in the distance. I have found myself crawling over to His wheel as I finally learn to truly walk with the Lord. And as I learn to stand and walk, I realize from the standpoint and perspective of a child, it is much easier and more natural to look up at the Lord than it is to look down at the world.

I have loved the Lord for many years, but due to the long-term consequences of trauma from long ago have struggled with trusting God like a child. Now I am learning. Are you? 

Mar 10:13  And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. 
Mar 10:14  But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. 
Mar 10:15  Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. 
Mar 10:16  And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. 

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