Tammy’s Reviews > The Clay Pot Conspiracy: God’s Plan to Use Weakness in Leaders > Status Update

He experienced grace upon grace. The biggest one to me is this: he realized that you don’t have to have closure! WOW!!! I can think of so many loose ends and what he is saying is that sometimes the loose ends will stay loose!

In such situations, Grace gets us through it without losing our relianace on Jesus. Sometimes, within the chaos is an even larger mess waiting for us. We find ourselves in a descent, expecting a turn at the bottom of the J. Sometimes, the turn is not going to happen because we are intended to go on a new journey and the old life needs to be torched for that to happen. How do you know when to stay or go?

Sheep are prone to wonder. They go from one pit and, shortly after being released, will fall into another. They are easily lead astray by false leaders. I will have to tell what the preacher said in Sand Point. When things go well, systemic weaknesses in ministry are masked. When accusations are made, we are devastated, even when there is no deliberate criminality. It reminds us how much we rely on social approval.

Christian leaders are flawed because of their sinful nature and limited vision and lack of full knowledge. Jesus knew what we were (lost sinners) and he loved us in spite of that. It’s hard for leaders when the church/Christians hurts us because it is an unexpected source. Our imperfections means that we don’t always live up to what we believe. We sin and make mistakes.

Ch. 4 Yeah! Church wounds. I wonder if wounds from Christians count, too. Just today, I smiled and acted nonchalant when someone innocently mentioned someone who took actions that wounded me deeply. I wasn’t the target, but I received flying schrapnel. He flips the script. All of us who have been wounded can think about those whome we have wounded. God often puts us on a new journey by making it impossible to stay.

* God knows I am going to fail. He takes into account my mistakes.
* Self-pity tries to bury us. God treats us better than we deserve.
* Focus on what now. What will God do now because he is so good?
* This is not my real home. My heart yearns for better for there will be better.
* I may fail but Christ did not fail.

Draw near to God and he will draw near to me. Repent and God will release a stream of resilience.

Repentance sends streams of living water to wash out the sin. The very first of Luther’s 95 theses focuses on grace, which he found lacking in the Catholic church. The number one reform was for the believer’s life to be built around grace. The more we approach the throne of grace in repentance, the more resilience flows into our lives and sustains us through the challenges of ministry.

Repentance invites us to receive grace. Without Christ, we have the log in our eye and, even then, it’s hard to see our sin unless we look to him and he points it out. Jeremiah states that the heart is deceitful and we are easily fooled about our condition. We are prone to wander. Clay pots are filled to the brim. We could easily be crushed by condemnation. Repentance clears out the mess.

The power of God can remove the thorns and thistles ensnaring us. Through his power, we can turn our eyes away from what we cannot control (evil) and look at what we control (how we respond with the help of God). By repenting, we confess our sins, receive forgiveness, and reorient our thinking toward God. Unfortunately, Satan and his kind try to make sin sound delightful and innocuous.

When we obsess on what people did to us, it is easy to forget what Jesus did for us. He takes the manacles off our hands and then we snatch them and put them on someone else’s hands because of our bitterness and resentment. I love this. Christ suffered injustice so that we would not have to face justice. We can let injustice make small or we can accept God’s peace shape. What others mean for evil God means for God.