Prayer and Pottery

Photo Credit: Mavuno Website

I think the biggest lesson I've learnt the last two weeks through Mizizi is how prayer isn't just a list of stuff that God has to answer, it's more of the relationship that He wants us to have with Him. Like in Mark 1, once word had spread that Jesus could heal people, he started preaching in the outskirts, so people would have to look for Him. Also, like Rick Warren says in The Purpose Driven Life, "God's goal for your life isn't comfort, but character development. He wants you to grow up spiritually and become like Christ"

Also, the story of Jeremiah watching the potter,


Jeremiah 18:1-6  The LORD said to me, "Go down to the potter's house, where I will give you my message." So I went there and saw the potter working at his wheel. Whenever a piece of pottery turned out imperfect, he would take the clay and make it into something else. Then the LORD said to me, "Don't I have the right to do with you people of Israel what the potter did with the clay? You are in my hands just like clay in the potter's hands. 

Photo Credit: Bill Longshaw

We have to constantly ask ourselves, am I living as the clay in God's hands, eager and willing for Him to change me and change my character, or do I constantly try to make God fit into my mold, shape Him in the way that I want Him to be. Rick Warren says again, "Never forget that life is not about you! You exist for God's purposes, not vice versa, God gives us our time on earth to build and strengthen our character for heaven.

Also, that in prayer, sometimes we focus so much on the result or the answer and not on God. For example, when my dad was sick, a pastor during a prayer day thing, told me that my dad would get better, and he didn't and for a long time I blamed this pastor, and was angry at her and at God, but last week the group helped me realize, that I had focussed so much on what the pastor had said, God had temporarily taken a back seat, I mean, I know that wasn't the reason he died, but that gap I created between me and God, definitely affected my reaction to it, and the subsequent events I did.