Clay gods

Public school told me I could be anyone or anything I wanted to be.  Mainstream Media popularized phrases like: “I do what I want,” “Don’t ever let someone tell you what you can’t do,” and “You do you.”  Books, t-shirts, mugs, wall art, and eye-catching memes all told me to dream big and to take command of my destiny.  Especially as a woman, I’ve often heard the message that I should reach for the stars and resist fitting into a certain box – unless of course that box is an executive office.  I’ve had unbelievable opportunities at my fingertips, and for that, I am truly grateful. 

However, somewhere along the line, I bought too much into the American dream.  With this inspirational message of limitless empowerment so prevalently preached, I found myself squirming a little bit when I read Romans 9:21.  It was one of my least favorite verses for a very long time (am I allowed to say that?).  It says:

Nobody wants to be a soup bowl.  Shouldn’t we all be made into David, The Thinker, or the Statue of Liberty? Don’t we all deserve to be molded into something glorious?  On the surface, this verse makes God’s sovereignty seem completely unappealing.  Our hearts cry out in protest with accusations of favoritism.  We question God’s love, justice, wisdom, and goodness.  We believe we have a right to equal treatment, equal opportunity, and equal blessing.  Equality becomes our standard for righteousness and justice instead of God Himself.  Lost in our own selfish desires for more, we forget that we already are all equal.  We all consist of the same formless clay – the same sinful substance.  All that we deserve is to be sent away from the Potter forever and discarded without the hope of ever fulfilling the purpose that He originally intended for us.  His love, justice, wisdom, and goodness are shown in the very fact that He chooses to work in us at all.  To work differently in different people’s lives is His prerogative. 

For me, my skewed view of equality wasn’t the only reason this verse didn’t sit well for so long.  Another facet of the American dream had become ingrained into my heart before I even realized what was happening.  The world taught me to believe in myself– which seems admirable and harmless, right?  Yet, everything can be taken to unhealthy extremes.  As much as I hate to admit it, I believed in myself more than I believed in God.  My desire to choose for myself exactly how my life would turn out seemed safer and more desirable than God’s perfect choice.  I elevated my own understanding, character, and morality over God’s and made Him out to be far smaller than He is.  One of the great battles of the Christian life is learning to see God as He is and to see ourselves as we are.  “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30).

In his commentary, Romans: Righteousness from Heaven, R. Kent Hughes notes the following concerning Romans 9:21: “The fact is, God is perfect.  Perfect in knowledge, wisdom, power, presence, faithfulness, goodness, justice, mercy, grace, love, and holiness.  Therefore, he is perfect in his choices.  God does not answer to anyone, is not responsible to anyone.  He is totally, absolutely sovereign.”  Isn’t that what we so often want to be true of ourselves?  We want to be the Potter.  We lust after God’s sovereignty and wish we didn’t have to answer to anyone.  What a mess we would make of our lives in our limited perspective and understanding if that were so.

He does give us the gift of freedom and choice – a paradox that we can’t totally wrap our minds around.  He doesn’t force us to follow Him.  However, He is no less God, and He is still in charge, regardless of how sincerely we believe that we are in control.  We can kick back against that fact and try to live as little gods, but as our imperfect choices inevitably clash against God’s plan and design for the world, we will eventually reap the consequences of those choices and be faced with the truth.  Our wisdom is no match for His, our sense of justice is seriously flawed, and our desires and dreams are blind to the full picture.  What it all comes down to is this: will we choose to hold God high and trust His character even when the choices He makes aren’t the ones we think He should make? Or, will we hold ourselves high, certain that our own choices are far better than God’s perfect and holy design?