Do I really want to be like you?

I wrote a children’s song called “I want to be like you”. I love to sing it with kids and teach them about the importance of allowing God to shape and mould us.  I have always considered it was about as we grow and need to be mouldable to His will as we develop and mature, especially for our children. 

 

“The potter moulds and makes, bends and breaks, design me to be, a servant for you.”

 

As I have done the actions over and over again; the bending, breaking, the shaping, the moulding, and the deep desire I have had to “want to be like God” in life, it is something that has been my prayer since I was a child.  

 

I have loved the visual of the clay and the ability to feel it in my hands and imagine shaping and moulding clay as I long to see people’s lives shaped and moulded by Him, and also my own life. 

 

Whoever said the simple promises of God cannot be powerful at any age, is clearly mistaken. This song and its promises have struck a deep chord with me recently and I am not sure I can even sing the song at the moment without feeling like an imposter.

 

I realise that lately I have been that clay that has arrogantly been saying to the potter, “what are you making?” And questioning not only the moulding and making, but especially the bending and breaking of how the Potter has been making me more like Him lately.  We can so easily say, ‘yes Lord, bend and break me’ until He does and then all we can say is, “what are you making?” And to be honest I have been very angry with the Potter.  

 

Isaiah 45:9 

 

“Woe to those who quarrel with their maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherd on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, What are you making? Does your work say, “The potter has no hands?”

 

It would seem I have been doing exactly that. I have simply been saying to God, I am done, I am out, I don't like this anymore and I don't want to be broken and bent and shaped by you any longer.  I am a potsherd - a broken piece of pottery. I am shattered on the ground and I would like you to simply sweep me up and place me in the bin. I am done. 

 

I am ashamed for all those years I have urged children and people to allow God to bend and break them so they can be more like Him. I have prayed that for my life, but now I want to take it all back and say, ‘enough, it is too hard, it is too painful, I simply don't want to do this anymore’. Of course, I still want to be more like God, but I didn't know it would cost this much, and be this painful. To feel so broken and discarded and rejected is so painful. And yet my deeper embarrassment is that I have been teaching this to kids who are living in this space and have been discarded and rejected most of their life. What a hypocrite I have been. 

 

Isaiah 40:29

 

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” 

 

I have been so busy loving and sharing out of my strength and happy to minster from this space, but I realise I am not sure if I can love and share out of weakness. I mean true weakness, weakness that means you are simply ground up broken pieces of clay that sit on the potter’s floor.  The small bits that you simply sweep up and put into the bin. The broken bits that get trodden on and ground down to dust and become simple a gritty pain under your feet. When, you feel that weak and weary, how can He do anything from that? 

 

Genesis 2: 7

 

“Then the Lord god Formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.”

 

Hmmm…I mean really, no matter how low I go and long for a valid excuse to say I am finished, dust to be swept away, I have nothing more to give or do, I am just looking for any excuse to not have to do the painful work of being reshaped, remoulded. I certainly don't want to be broken any more. And I certainly don't want to be in leadership anymore where I must sing that song and encourage others to go on the journey of being moulded and shaped and broken by the potter. It is too painful and hard. 

 

When you get to the space and we all do at times, we are faced with a choice. I can either choose to sit in a pity party or I can be open to that fact that even when your life is dust, He can breathe life into it. New life, transforming life, life that you cannot yet possibly see or imagine. Help me to choose to sing: 

 

                   I want to be like you, 

                   I am changing day by day.

                   teach me Lord, and show me how, 

                   to grow to be more like you

                   …design me to be more like you.