Craig Clouston

 

What Do You Think About?

October 24

For as he thinks in his heart, so he is.

Proverbs 23:7 (NKJV)

The potter took the lump of clay and plopped it down in the center of the turntable. As he moved his foot the wheel began to turn slowly and gradually built momentum. Unhurriedly, he worked the malleable mud with skillful hands, compressing it into a symmetrical ball that could be molded to his imagination.

When the consistency and form were just right he gently squeezed and pulled upward and outward, opening the clay, stretching it to make a hollow in the center, all the time conscious of the image in his mind.

He wet his hands once again and reached deeper into what was now a small urn. Gently, pulling with both hands, one inside, one outside, he raised the walls until they formed a beautifully slender vase over a foot tall. He moved his foot faster, increasing the rotation of the wheel. He next used a fluting tool to carve recesses and decorative lines in the vase, pressing the tool against the vase while supporting it with equal pressure from inside.

A smile crept over his face as he took stock of his work, for he was looking at the exact representation of the image he’d formed in his mind. All that was left was to fire the piece, transforming it into the priceless heirloom he envisioned it to be.

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The word ‘imagination’ in the Greek means ‘A forming of.' The potter first had to imagine and visualize what he wanted to create. He had to see it in his mind’s eye before he could create it in the physical.

In Luke 6:45 Jesus said, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart. The evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”

Our mind is the force that brings things from the spiritual into the physical. What we think about matters because, as today’s text says, our thoughts occupy they recesses of our heart and will be expressed in physical actions.

Prayer

“The truth is that I don’t always consider whether my thoughts are pleasing to You, Lord. Help me to be mindful of what occupies my imagination. In Jesus’ Name, amen.”