Modeling Clay Hearts Revisited

Last night as I drove to the church I got to thinking about something that happened on a Wednesday night about 6 months ago. We were talking about having soft hearts in our relationships. Our youth pastor gave everyone a block of modeling clay and told us to make a heart out of it. Let me tell you, that was easier said than done! The modeling clay was rock hard and was not about to move. After a while, we were able to start smooshing it around by creating heat in the clay. Now, as if that wasn’t hard enough, I am not the most artistic person in the world, so my heart only looked like a heart if you squinted. As I was contemplating my next step, it got me to thinking about how this modeling clay really truly was like my heart.

See, when God first gets our lives (when we accept His plan of salvation) our hearts are hard and unrecognizable as a heart, just like the modeling clay was when it was first handed to me. Then, God softens our hearts. And sometimes the softening is easy, but other times, God has to expose our hearts to heat and fire in order to make us moldable. And, as that lump of clay that is our heart begins to soften, God is able to shape it and form it. Sometimes that means stretching. Sometimes that means breaking. Sometimes that means smooshing the whole thing back together and starting from scratch. Most of the time our hearts aren’t even recognizable as hearts, but eventually, God will shape us into the women He wants us to be. While our hearts will never be perfect in this life (we will always have some rough edges…it comes with the terrestrial territory), when we give God control of our lives, He creates a beautiful thing.

It’s important for us to realize that there will come times in our lives when God has to mold us. Those are the times when you’ll find yourself in one of two spots: 1) Hungry for God and His Word or 2) Broken and wounded and hurting. Actively seek after God every day and your molding will come the first way. But, those times when you hit bottom, know that God uses the times when everything hurts as a way to shape you into a woman of character and compassion, who is devoted to Him.

“Test me, O Lord, and try me,
examine my heart and my mind;
for your love is ever before me,
and I walk continually in your truth.”
Psalm 26:2-3

“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are the work of your hand.”
Isaiah 64:8

I pray that we would become men and women who seek after Truth and Righteousness and Purity all the days of our lives. But most of all, I pray that we so seek after God that we learn to welcome the times when He molds us and breaks us. Because it is only after we are broken that we can be molded.