Have you ever spent an inordinate amount of time searching through your pantry for a container? After digging through various shapes and sizes, you pull out your prize. Only then you discover that none of the lids fit!
That perfect container remains hidden or simply doesn’t exist. But our leftovers must be stored in something. So we use whatever we find and improvise. Has it occurred to you that perhaps God does the same?
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.
2 Corinthians 4:7
The Book of Acts describes this phenomena. When the day of Pentecost arrived, God’s promised Spirit descended in fiery tongues to indwell the disciples waiting in the Upper Room. He didn’t wait for these believers to achieve perfection before granting this promise. Instead God used imperfect containers, these earthen vessels, for His holy purposes. He’ll do the same with you and me today.
On the one hand, I feel honored that God trusts me with the gift of His Spirit. Yet so often, I feel unfit for this most important assignment. Imperfect as we are, God still chooses to do His work in and through His people. Even though, we are leaky, cracked earthen vessels, He reveals His power best through our weakness.
When God employs a person as a vessel of His Spirit, He doesn’t intend for them to act like a closed container. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. A vessel isn’t meant to hold these God-given qualities but to share them. The Spirit flows through a believer like a sieve. To live as a Holy vessel, one must be holey.
A friend of mine masterfully represented this concept in one of her recent creations. Jacquie Green owns her own business as a silversmith designing amazing pieces of jewelry for her customers. She recently gifted me a necklace composed of a silver box with a heart shaped opening on one side and a cross on the other. Love flows from the cross, moving through this vessel, then out of the heart into the world.
Wearing this necklace reminds me of the great role God asks us to play everyday in His story. Hidden in these earthen vessels is the very Spirit of the Lord. It’s our responsibility to share this with the world through the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
But remember, we’re all works in progress, far from perfect. Every believer begins as a broken vessel. Nevertheless, when we place our brokenness in the hands of the Master, He will transform us into unique, perfect works of art. God trusts us with His Spirit. Trust Him with the process.
To see more of Jacquie’s creations, go to http://www.ccaartgallery.com/
