You're not being picked at, you're being prepared!

In the Word, Jeremiah 18: 1-6 says that we are clay in the potter's hands. And at times that kind of feels a lot like when you're three years old and your mom's trying to get you ready for church. She's picking at your face, wiping the boogers off of your nose, pulling at your hair while trying to put it up, and squeezing you into your clothes...just picking at you, trying to get you all ready. And while that may be our feelings sometimes about how the Lord deals with us to get rid of the junk in our lives, I know that is not his heart nor his intention. 

It's less like your mom treats you when you're three getting ready for church and more like a good good father pruning those he loves. Job 5:17 says "Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty." I've been chewing on this scripture for weeks now because I've felt like that little girl all too often with the Lord trying to shape me and mold me like clay in his hands. Sometimes I open up my arms and willingly surrender to him doing this. Other times I want to hole-up like a hermit crab and just jump off of that potters wheel and scream mercy! 

But, at the end of the day, whatever my feelings were about the sanctification process of knowing Jesus and him making us more like him, I know that the bottom line, the foundation truth that we have to live and stand on is that he prunes those he loves (John 15:2). And he loves us sooooo much. So much that he doesn't want to leave us where we are. 

You see, when he prunes us, he's preparing us. If you feel like you're getting pruned or you feel like you're in the fire and he's trying to get the gold to come to the surface, like you're on the potter's wheel over and over again, you get excited! Because he is preparing you for greater things! If he didn't have greater things for you, he would just leave you that same ole dusty, rusted pot in the corner. But he does have greater things for you. So he takes you off the shelf and puts you on that potter's wheel and spins it and molds it to prepare you. 

So what is he pruning in you? What is he preparing you for? I bet it's good, big stuff.