Just in case you missed my bio or my wifey's endless praise of how I'm the best plumber in the world, I'm letting you know now; that's how I make a living and keep food on the table. I'm not one of the big crack in the back hockey chasers with the filthy boots, though. I'm a new construction kinda guy. I get my kicks through problem solving and mathematics throughout the day. Sometimes it's hard, most times it's quite enjoyable.
Something I read from T. Austin Sparks the other day at lunch reminded me of my job. He said "the vessel is in the potter and then the potter is in the clay". Immediately the light bulb went on. If you don't get it yet, hang in there with me, Imma break it down fo' ya.
When I walk on to a job I usually have a set of drawings that show the dimensions of rooms and locations of the fixtures I am to plumb for. Very rarely do my drawings show the locations of the pipework to be installed. It is my job to be able to picture the pipe systems in place from point A to points B through Z before the first piece is installed. That way I can do everything right the first time without a lot of two steps forward, three steps back.
Piece by piece the picture in my head becomes a reality. Taylor made to convey water from one point to another. Since geometry plays a key role in my methods of installation, the pipework always looks plumb, orderly, and neat. People notice that. Some folks have told me that they knew I did the plumbing installation because of how neat it all looked. I had left my mark behind.
I think that is what Sparks was talking about. We are Gods vessel and He is the potter who forms us from the clay. He knows exactly what he wants to form and piece by piece He puts us together until His mental image has become a reality. As the job progresses and especially once it is complete, He has left His mark. People notice and say "God has done a work in these people".
The vessel is in the potter and then the potter is in the vessel.
Our names were written in the lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world and the end goal is: Christ in you, the hope of glory. We can rejoice that we were complete in the mind of God before He ever bagan to work in us. In His mind we are complete in Christ and one day we will see ourselves the same way He does. Perfect, righteous, holy and one with Him.
Neverland is a place that never dies, and all within it play by the same rules. only, they are not thought of as rules but as that which exists without reason or question.
ReplyDeletevery poetic!
ReplyDeleteThe novel explains that the Neverlands are found in the minds of children, and that although each is always more or less an island, and they have a family resemblance, they are not the same from one child to the next.
ReplyDeleteI am a reformed lost girl and this seems to be a journey of tearing down the structures that kept immature and being built up into a new man in Christ.
ReplyDeleteAs adults we lose some of the passion and ambitious drive; the sole purpose being that a place such as Neverland does not exist. Although, it does, it does exist for a single purpose.
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