Facing Change with Courage

I'm looking forward to teaching a new class this spring, a class in Christian discipleship and formation.  Right off the bat, we want to look at how we face change in our lives.  When the world throws us a curve ball.  When, all of a sudden, we find ourselves with an overwhelming personal challenge.  How do we meet the challenge and face change with courage?

In all of scripture, one of my favorite metaphors is that of the potter working a piece of clay on the potter's wheel.  As I face changes in my life, and challenges on every front, can I partner with God in such a way that God uses these changes to mold and shape and renew my life?  I can fight the changes.  I can resent the challenges.  I can pine longingly for the days when life was simpler.  Or I can invite the hands of the potter in, and collaborate the God in a new season of spiritual growth.

One of the sweetest things about the video here--as a friend pointed out to me some time ago--is the way the potter uses a little water now and then, to dampen the clay, to make it soft enough to work with.  Maybe baptism works that way.  Maybe Christ works in us to soften the hard edges, to warm up the cold places, to encourage openness.  Change can do a couple of things.  It can harden our hearts, make us rigid and resentful.  Or it can invite a kind of radical openness to God and a willingness to trust the loving hands of the potter.

Think about the changes and challenges in your life.  What would it mean for you to trust the hands of the potter?  How do you experience, even right now, the Holy One molding and shaping and renewing your life?  What kind of support and encouragement can friends offer you on the way to this kind of renewal?

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace!  Lord, make me an instrument of your peace!"