Articles
My Third Grade Mistake
My Third Grade Mistake
Tyler King
As a young student, I had a knack for not trusting my teachers. I remember one time when I was in third grade and I really learned my lesson. The elementary school I attended would cycle through electives such as art, computer science, PE, and music. We were in the art phase and our project was to make clay pots. Little did my teacher know, I was practically a Michelangelo prodigy (or so I thought). At the end of the class period, she instructed us to take our unfinished clay pots, spritz them with water, and seal them in a plastic bag in order to preserve them for the next class period. I rejected her reality and substituted with my own. It's clay; it doesn't need water to survive. I would be wasting time and energy with her method.
A weekend had passed, and it was time to return to my work. I watched in arrogance as all my classmates pulled their projects out of the wet plastic bags. They immediately picked up where they left off and proceeded to mold their pots. I looked down in disgust at my hardened and dried out clay blob. I tried to shape it, but the results were destructive. Eventually it just became a pile of clay dust. All the work I had spent was all in vain. I could've avoided the heartbreak had I listened to my teacher.
When we isolate ourselves from God, we forfeit true prosperity. It is easier for God to mold something beautiful when it is first malleable. Isaiah made a call for repentance in Isaiah 64:8. In this call, he stated, "we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hands." Each of us have the potential to be something incredible if we remain open to God's will.
Obviously, my third-grade mentality was not a good example. I thought I knew better than my teacher, regardless of my non-existent experience working with clay. Not only that, but I figured her method was a waste of time and energy. These two ideologies can be found in the Christian faith. God tells us to live by faith, yet we get impatient and demand expediency. God tells us how to have faith and we turn right around and begin our own methods; regardless of the limited life experience we have.
At the conclusion of the art class, we all stood around my teacher as she put the finishing touches on her clay pot. She had been working quietly in the background while we were preoccupied with our own work. Her art was stunning and out of the realm of capability to us as third graders. It was at that point, that I wanted to learn from her as much as possible. Look around and observe what God can do. Knowing the capability of the Creator can fuel us to surrender our "ways" and ask for His instead.
