No Handles

I should start by saying that Isaiah is probably my favorite book in the Bible. No, definitely my favorite book in the Bible (sort of unusual, I know).  If I’m going through a phase where I just randomly open my Bible for devotions, I usually open to Isaiah, and I’m rarely disappointed.

Recently, I did just that and read this: 

“Woe to you who strive with your Maker, earthen vessels with the potter! Does the clay say to the one who fashions it, “What are you making”? or “Your work has no handles”?” Isaiah 45:9 NRSV

As I read it, I started to sort of automatically nod my head in assent. That is after all what the writer of Isaiah is going for.  He’s trying to make a terribly obvious point that anyone with any sort of brain would agree with.  Of course: who would strive with their maker? I keep going, and am caught short by the next question: Does the clay ask, “What are you making?” 

Ummm….I feel like I ask that question of God all the time.

Woe to me, I suppose.

But the problem is, sometimes it’s so hard to tell what exactly God is making, what God is doing in us, and we as humans want to know. Some might say it’s just simple curiosity. I think it’s a little less innocent than that, and more of a control thing.

And what about the next part: Does the clay say “your work has no handles”?

The correct answer that Isaiah is going for is: “of course not.” Of course the clay doesn't say that.

And yet, isn’t that problem? God’s work so often has no handles. Nothing concrete to hold onto. No blueprint or sketch to reference.

I’ve always found it interesting how we (myself included) like to hold onto handles even when they don’t matter. Like holding onto the handles on a roller coaster when the handles are attached to your harness. If you’re harness fails and you go flying off a roller coaster, chances are those handles won’t help. Or how nervous parents with teenage drivers hold that handle above the passenger side window. Like that’s going to make a difference.

I once noticed going through pictures from church camp that everyone going on the zipline holds onto the rope that connects them to the line.  Their tight grasp serves no purpose. If the zipline breaks, that rope is going down just as fast as they are.  Still, nearly everyone holds it. It gives a false sense of control, even in situations when we have none. It makes us feel like we’re doing something.

The temptation is always wanting to be more like the potter than the clay. Wanting not just for something to hold onto, something solid, but to be the one making the design. In that light, it’s hard to forget that the original sin was wanting to be like God.

If you’ve ever watched a potter with a wheel the shape is constantly changing.   Just when you think it’s almost done, they make one bend and it looks like everything is nearly back to square one again. Truthfully, each little bend and adjustment is contributing to the final shape. Even those times when it looks like things are nearly starting over. Those moments are adding angles and details that may matter in the end.

But we want to know the direction ahead of time, and truthfully I’d rather avoid those moments when the clay gets smooshed almost back to the beginning, feeling like we’re starting over with no sense of what shape is coming next.

And while I want to nod my head in solemn agreement with Isaiah, I know that wouldn’t be honest. I’m the one saying, “Hey! Whatever you’re doing, there’s nothing to hold onto! You haven’t given me any handles!”

And that’s the trouble for us, at least often for me. When we are being shaped and molded into something new, there are no handles, there isn’t necessarily anything to hold on to, nothing to make us feel like we are in control, and often we haven’t even gotten a glimpse of the vision for the final product.

It is a grand design, no doubt, God’s work in us, but it is not our design. We are neither the architect or the foreman, merely the clay. And the clay has very little say in the outcome or the process. I don’t think we’re very good at being clay. I’m not.

The NLT translation phrases the verse this way

“What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, “Stop, you’re doing it wrong!” Does the pot exclaim, “How clumsy can you be?” Isaiah 45:9 NLT

I kind of like the sarcastic tone of this one :-)   But God’s work in us often does feel clumsy. Probably because we’re fighting it. Trying to avoid being clay. Even as I attempt to let go and lean into trust, even as my lips form the prayer “make me clay”, I feel my mind resist it. The rational part of me doesn’t really want to give permission to be molded, especially if it means be smooshed back down only to seemingly begin again. Especially if it means a totally different shape than I imagined or planned.

I ask God all the time, “what are you making?”  Sometimes I ask directly, sometimes I raise the question simply by my lack of trust. I’m the one who says to God “your work has no handles!”

Little ones don’t have this problem, I’ve noticed, of needing to hold on.

Take this example. Cara is obsessed with the pool.  One morning I walked into her room at 7:45 am when she woke up.  As soon as she saw me, she stuck her face against the slats of her crib and, with eyes like saucers whispered, “Go pool water???”

Good morning to you too, honey.  No, I haven’t had any coffee yet, thanks for asking.

She’d go to the “pool water” four times a day if I let her. And she’s fearless.

She jumps off the edge constantly.  She’ll come up to the edge where I’m ready to catch her, and then take 3 surprise steps the other way and jump.  She just trusts that I’m there, no matter where she is.  It reminds me of Psalm 139:

If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.  Psalm 139:9-10

No matter where her unexpected wandering takes her, she trusts that I’m ready to catch her.

After all, she’s used to being held.

Perhaps the point of this verse in Isaiah is that we’re not meant to have handles. We’re not designed to be gripping tightly to plans and predetermined futures. We’re made to be clay in the hands of a loving God who never leaves us.

We’re used to holding on to things, but instead, we’re made to be held. Made to be twisted and turned and wrecked and reworked so that we display the masterpiece of God’s love to world yearning for that kind of beauty

…even though we’re not always that good at being clay.

But it’s really only when we let go of the ways we cling so tightly to our plans and desires and scenarios and dreams of how we think we should turn out, it’s only then that we can step back and start to watch the design unfold. We can let the twists and turns mold and shape and change us in ways that will turn out beautifully.

It’s when we stop looking for handles, those tangible things we can hold onto, be in charge of, only then, that our hands are free and open to receive the gifts of God.

I think that’s this life of faith; learning to jump in; to live with open hands; learning that when there are no handles, we’ll be caught.

Trusting that even when we let go --especially when we let go--

of our plans and designs,  we’ll be held.