“Find centre first or else everything after will be wrong. First step very important.”
I was at the potter’s house, and those were the words my teacher emphasized over and over. Because it was so hard to place the clay at dead centre of the wheel, he often had to do it for me.
The past week has been one of turmoil. Listless, cranky, and irritable for days without knowing why, the distance between God and myself felt immeasurable in spite of my desperation. Scared, frustrated and lonely, it felt like I was walking in the wilderness, on a fruitless search for water.
Having God point to you the fissures in your life can be most overwhelming, dismantling almost. As the curtain was unveiled before my eyes, I found myself astonished, shocked at how, in so many unconsious ways, I had placed myself, my pleasures, my false securities, instead of Him at the centre of my own wheel. He is the Potter, and we the clay. Yet, for the first time, I saw how I had put myself in the centre of own world and usurped His place.
It’s never easy to admit you’re in centre of your world. We all want to be known as someone who puts others or God before ourselves, as the centre of our worlds. Nobody likes to be known as one who thinks the world revolves around them.
Yet, as my eyes were opened, I saw how the clay of my life had been marred because it was in the wrong centre, off-centre. In so many ways, I appeared what I am not inside. And instead of being in the centre of God’s will by letting God be the centre of my life, I had placed myself in the centre of eveything.
The clay was Off-centre. Hence, marred.
How the knowledge of that scared me. It petrified me. Every thing which I had found enjoyment in- writing, running, cycling, medicine, missions, life… became ugly to me as I saw how I had pushed God to the sidelines, in insidious, subtle ways. I had worshipped what I ought to have used, and used, for my own gains, what I ought to have worshipped. Torn, grieved and bitter, yet relieved also at the epiphany, I became desperate to find my True centre again.
“Find centre first or else everything after will be wrong. First step very important.”
Why do I write, paint, play. Why do I run, cycle, swim. Why do I dance, sing, make? Why do I treasure the opinions of some and desire their approval so earnestly? Why do I want to do medical missions? Why am I so deeply torn- between the fear of joining a race and falling into the pit of pride again, and yet the desperate desire to face it head-on to overcome my fear and gain total liberty? What has been my approach to all these things?
The answers scared me- for they reflected, to different extents, a selfish, prideful preoccupation with myself. But perhaps, what petrified me the most- was realising how even thinking I had a call to medical missions had its centre, to a large extent, around myself, too. And it immobilised me to entertain the thought that maybe I had heard wrong, that maybe that’s not God’s will… and that perhaps, I had put that ideal instead of God in the centre of my own wheel.
It was His will against my wheel. And somewhere in that tension, a false idol was erected, and God was displaced.
As silly as it sounds, it shook the foundation of my faith. The past week has been painful- painful now still. When I had entertained the thought that perhaps missions (this ideal which I had shaped my whole new life on) may not be part of God’s plan for me, and I may have to yield to whatever the Potter’s hand commands, I crumbled as I saw how that too, instead of God, had been put in the centre of my life.
Does it scare us to know that what we place in the centre of our wheels may be temporal, uncertain, changing? Does it comfort you to know that God is the only constant? And does it completely boggle you to know that God is bigger than our dreams, our desires?
And just when I had wanted to give up, a friend reminded me of the refining fire God puts us through to purify our thoughts and intents, so we may be moulded into greater vessels of honour for greater purposes. I thought I had been moulded into shape and ready for the furnace, but now I found a knife put to my side to sharpen my ends and smoothen my rough edges.
Tis a painful position to be in, to have a knife to your side. Utterly discomforting.
And it takes a heart of faith to know that it will not be for nothing. For it’s better to be in the centre, in pain and refined, than off-centre, pain-free and marred. Through pain, and having our motives, intents and thoughts purified, sharpened and refined, we become more useful vessels. Sometimes, maybe it’s not about whether we end up pursuing those interests after all- but how our attitudes towards them, ourselves and God change.
So even though I’m not in a comfortable place, even though the knife hurts, I’m going to stay on this wheel.
The crafting is not over.
Search me O God, and know my heart,
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-24