Seeing the Real God

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Opening Prayer

Father, as I approach Your Word, may Your Spirit come upon me to open the eyes of my heart to see Your face.

Read ISAIAH 64:1-12

^[1] Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! ^[2] As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! ^[3] For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. ^[4] Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. ^[5] You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? ^[6] All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. ^[7] No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins. ^[8] Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. ^[9] Do not be angry beyond measure, LORD; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people. ^[10] Your sacred cities have become a wasteland; even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation. ^[11] Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins. ^[12] After all this, LORD, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

Meditate

“Have Thine own way, Lord. Have Thine own way. Thou are the Potter. I am the clay” (Adelaide Pollard, 1862-1934). Old hymn, but timeless truth.

Think Further

John Calvin believed passionately in the power of Scripture to bring clarity to our confused understandings of God. The Bible, he suggested, worked like the spectacles that focus the fuzzy letters on a page into meaningful words. “Revelation, Calvin’s metaphor implies … corrects the astigmatism of the sinful imagination … freeing us to see clearly what has been there all along” (G. Green).

The returned exiles in Jerusalem urgently needed a fresh and undistorted vision of God. The psalm of lament (63:7–64:12) reveals not an alternative understanding of the furiously battling God we encountered yesterday, but additional clarifying insights that guard against any tendency to one-dimensional worship. Two of those understandings come together in verse 8: “Lord, You are our Father … You are our potter.” God’s Word (although not often in the Old Testament) invites his people to call him Father, with all that name should imply about safety, intimacy and trustworthiness. This same word encourages us to ask our Father, “Where … where … why?” (63:11,15,17) and to talk frankly with him about those times when he seems hidden (5,7) and we feel abandoned (7). The image of the potter runs like a refrain through Isaiah (29:16; 45:9-11; 64:8). In each case it reinforces our understanding of the relationship of complete dependence between ourselves, who are “all the work of your hand” (8), and God who creates and shapes us.

We may wonder what kind of partial or distorted understanding of God was most widespread among the Jerusalem exiles. Had they lost sight of the passionately angry God waging war on evil (5)? Or had the conviction become dimmed of a forgiving Father (9) who understood them as intimately as the potter knows his clay?

Apply

What work of formation is the Master Potter doing in your life right now? Are you, the clay, yielding to the Potter, or resisting his shaping work in your life?

Closing prayer

Creator God, I am the work of Your hands. You created me and now You shape me. May I be pliable in Your hands, and cooperate with Your shaping work.

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