Based on “Potter’s Field” by Mike and Pam Rozell; 3/17-18/12,
Message #GS82; Daily Devotional #3 - “Not What You Thought”
Preparing the Soil (Introduction): In this weekend’s service, Mike and Pam Rozell performed their ministry presentation called Potter’s Field. Mike, using clay, created a beautifully shaped vase about three feet tall, and then suddenly crushed the top off the vase to the dismay of the audience. He then revealed that he had never been making a vase but had, the whole time, been making a bowl. His point was that this is often how God works in our lives. Events and circumstances come together which might cause us to be fully convinced that God is doing a certain work in our lives when, sometimes to our dismay, we discover that the whole time God had intended something quite different for us and through us.
Planting and Watering the Seed (Growth): This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. (Jeremiah 18:1-10)
Harvesting the Crop (Action/Response): When my wife and I left the service and were driving home, we talked about our current circumstances and the plans that we’ve made and presented to the Lord. We wondered if the example that the Potter’s Field Ministry presented might be happening in our own lives at this very moment. What if right now, we believe God to be doing a certain thing in and with our lives. How would we feel and what would our attitudes be if we suddenly discovered that the Lord had, the whole time, been working out something different in our lives? Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:8)
Cultivating (Additional Reading): 1 Thessalonians 5:18
GH
Calvary Chapel of Melbourne; 2955 Minton Road; W. Melbourne, FL 32904; 321-952-9673
All Bible references are from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise noted.