For the sealing of its holes made it sadly deceived, claiming the echo inside was the real thing indeed.
Have you ever felt totally confident and content one moment and the very next, overwhelmed with uncertainty? How is this possible? You’ve been hijacked by doubt. Such ambushing is especially true in our relationships because doubt challenges the very trust on which they are built. This is the story of the flute and I think it is often ours as well. As Christians, the festering question takes root in our hearts and threatens our faith, “Is God really enough?”
Why didn’t the Potter step in and dispel the doubt? Even though he loved the flute, he allowed it freedom to make its own choice. So too with God. He will not force us to love him … for such unchosen love is no love at all. We must choose whether to open our hearts to God and trust him as our source or question his goodness by “sealing our holes” and grasping for what we think we need.
Sometimes the closing of our hearts is a process … preceded by months or years of neglecting the health of our faith. Whether through busyness, laziness, or disillusionment we can compromise the ability of our hearts to be satisfied with God. Other times it happens more quickly; we can “seal our holes” when we allow the pain and disillusionment of our suffering to become the reason for doubting God’s love and wisdom to lead our lives.
One thing is for sure, when we allow doubt to grow we create an environment of echoes and illusions that will soon appear to be the satisfaction we’ve so earnestly sought. Sooner or later, however, we will realize the true nature of these impostors and then our choice becomes clear—settle for the substitute or return to the Real. But “change we will not” until the misery of lost love and fellowship with God is more unbearable than the painful truth about the emptiness of our beautiful mirages.
Only by returning to the Potter and trusting his method of restoration did the flute finally regain the song. So too with us, the reclaiming of our faith and love for God is a process. Sometimes it is painful as God scraps away belief systems, misplaced affections, and behaviors that have prevented us from seeing our echoes and illusions for what they are. But if we submit to his work of renewal, we will finally discover the life that only God can give and no one will ever hijack again … without our choice. Next week we talk about the process of returning our hearts to God.
What Do You Think?
Can you identified with the cluttered holes of the flute? If so, what do you think it would take to become uncluttered once again?
♦ To see the video and poem this post is based on, click here.
