The Man in the Mirror Journey
is a journey of walking out of a tomb and recognizing everyday the beauty and significance of how God created us. Instead of rebounding and finding esteem in the arms of someone else, these are the step to seeing it in the arms of God
Day 31
My Fingers
The Old Reflection
Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingershave made.
Isaiah 59:3
For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things.
For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things.
My Complaining
Ecclesiastes 2:20
That's when I called it quits, gave up on anything that could be hoped for on this earth. What's the point of working your fingers to the bone if you hand over what you worked for to someone who never lifted a finger for it? Smoke, that's what it is. A bad business from start to finish. So what do you get from a life of hard labor? Pain and grief from dawn to dusk. Never a decent night's rest. Nothing but smoke.
That's when I called it quits, gave up on anything that could be hoped for on this earth. What's the point of working your fingers to the bone if you hand over what you worked for to someone who never lifted a finger for it? Smoke, that's what it is. A bad business from start to finish. So what do you get from a life of hard labor? Pain and grief from dawn to dusk. Never a decent night's rest. Nothing but smoke.
God's Response
Isaiah 45:8
"Open up, heavens, and rain. Clouds, pour out buckets of my goodness! Loosen up, earth, and bloom salvation; sprout right living. I, God, generate all this. But doom to you who fight your Maker— you're a pot at odds with the potter! Does clay talk back to the potter: 'What are you doing? What clumsy fingers!' Would a sperm say to a father, 'Who gave you permission to use me to make a baby?' Or a fetus to a mother, 'Why have you cooped me up in this belly?'"
"Open up, heavens, and rain. Clouds, pour out buckets of my goodness! Loosen up, earth, and bloom salvation; sprout right living. I, God, generate all this. But doom to you who fight your Maker— you're a pot at odds with the potter! Does clay talk back to the potter: 'What are you doing? What clumsy fingers!' Would a sperm say to a father, 'Who gave you permission to use me to make a baby?' Or a fetus to a mother, 'Why have you cooped me up in this belly?'"
Romans 9:20
Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to thefingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?" Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well: I'll call nobodies and make them somebodies; I'll call the unloved and make them beloved. In the place where they yelled out, "You're nobody!" they're calling you "God's living children." Isaiah maintained this same emphasis: If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered and the sum labeled "chosen of God," They'd be numbers still, not names; salvation comes by personal selection. God doesn't count us; he calls us by name. Arithmetic is not his focus. Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth: If our powerful God had not provided us a legacy of living children, We would have ended up like ghost towns, like Sodom and Gomorrah. How can we sum this up? All those people who didn't seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their "God projects" that they didn't notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together: Careful! I've put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion, a stone you can't get around. But the stone is me! If you're looking for me, you'll find me on the way, not in the way.
Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to thefingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?" Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well: I'll call nobodies and make them somebodies; I'll call the unloved and make them beloved. In the place where they yelled out, "You're nobody!" they're calling you "God's living children." Isaiah maintained this same emphasis: If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered and the sum labeled "chosen of God," They'd be numbers still, not names; salvation comes by personal selection. God doesn't count us; he calls us by name. Arithmetic is not his focus. Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth: If our powerful God had not provided us a legacy of living children, We would have ended up like ghost towns, like Sodom and Gomorrah. How can we sum this up? All those people who didn't seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their "God projects" that they didn't notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together: Careful! I've put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion, a stone you can't get around. But the stone is me! If you're looking for me, you'll find me on the way, not in the way.
The New Reflection
Psalm 8:3
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
Psalm 144:1
Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.
Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.
Proverbs 7:3
Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.
Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.
Prayer
Father God! What a beautiful process! To be able to see ourselves the way you designed us, and at the same way see the flaws that draw us so far away from you! God we thank you that you don't anoint just one part of our bodies but living in you, you have covered us from the top of our head to the souls of our feet!
So we Thank you for blessing our fingers!
We thank you for the example that we set when we shake peoples hands and when we type, our conduct daily activities that seem to have no significance! But we thank you, because we drove our car safely today and we were able t open up the door to our homes and pull back the blankets to the beds we sleep in! Our we were able to knock on the door to the place were we could rest until things get better.
You are awesome and we acknowledge the small and significant miracles that you have blessed us in
We praise you and thank you
Amen
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