From today’s devo, illustrating the relationship between God (the Artist) and us (the clay):

We are reluctant to relax in the hands of the Potter for one main reason: We forget why we exist. We assume that clay exists for the sake of its own feelings or dreams. We focus on “clay esteem,” “clay actualization,” or “clay fulfillment,” oblivious to the infinitely larger purpose of our formation. Clay really exists for the Potter alone. When the Artist is allowed to do His work, the clay displays the creativity of His heart and mind.

I can say, without a doubt, that it’s in our human nature to always try to be in control of things in our lives. We want to plan out things for the future, what high school we go to, which university to go to, our future careers, whether we want to be married, have children etc. (sometimes I say even more so in the Asian, or rather any stereotypical modern culture). But I can also say that:

1) our view of the future to be honest isn’t as far as you might think. Our minds are limited, whether that be 3 years, 5 years or 10 years into the future. But God has already has a grand plan for our lives, he knows it all already. And between my near-sighted vision and his far-sighted one. I think I’ll trust his

2) Living a Christian life means that some things you thought you were going to do won’t happen. BUT at the same time, in my own spiritual walk, I find that God always provides, and also likes to surprise us by opening doors of opportunity to do things we may have wanted to do, but thought we couldn’t. Allow me to give you two brief examples from my life:

(1) Since I was 12 year old, I had (for one reason or another, mostly parents I guess) decided that I wanted to do Life Sciences, go to the University of Toronto, get a job in some health/medical related field, and do art on the side as a hobby. That vision lasted until my last year of high school when I got accepted into Design school (something I never dreamed of happening but it did) and ditched my security/planned out life to follow a passion I had had for years. (I will be writing a separate post with more regarding this sort of…epiphany in life)

(2) I had always dreamed of going to Japan. I had planned to treat myself by going there as a grad trip after I finished university. I didn’t end up going after university because of the earthquake and nuclear crisis, but I’m happy to have been able to go earlier in my first year of university (that on top of making a number of friends along the way since it was like an exchange trip)

God provides and will surprise you sometimes if you simply give him space to work in your lives. In the words of a friend (who tweeted this quote, and I’m paraphrasing a bit):

Faith (in Him) is the bridge between ” I can’t…” and “I can’t believe it!”