A Method to this Madness

by MW Cook

So many times I’ve asked myself (and you readers) why the physical is given power to screw up the spiritual. Why my fatigue level affects my desire to pray. Why the temperature changes my inclination to the Word. Why my body rules my soul. I think I found an answer.

Christ is a treasure. He is the greatest treasure. The Pearl of Great Price. There is nothing you can trade Christ for because he is the most valuable thing in the universe we could ever possess. There is nothing you could ever compare to the greatness of having he who has all things.

But where do we put valuable things? In appropriate containers, of course. Laptops don’t go in cardboard boxes, they go in laptop cases. Diamonds aren’t fastened to car antennas, they are put in jewelry boxes. So where is the greatest treasure of the universe placed? Clay pots. Now that seems strange. The surpassing power of the spirit of the Son of God is put in simple, fragile, cracked pots. Us.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay…

God, in his foolish-looking wisdom, has deemed it right and good to place the spirit of the fullness of godhead into idiot humans who can’t tell their right hand from their left. But why?! This doesn’t make any sense! Humans will abuse the spirit of God! Humans will quench it, humans will dishonor it! Humans don’t even know how to use it! Why would he put the spirit of Christ in us?

to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

Oh.

Why is my body a clay pot? Why does it break and crack and do things that cause me to stumble? To prove to me that whenever I do succeed and when I finally will succeed the power is God’s. There is no mistaking it at this point: I have no useful power. My power is weakness. My intellect is stupid. My righteousness is crap. Any good that comes cannot be from me, I’ve proved that abundantly with my life. Therefore I know that when I finally do win, and whenever I make steps in the right direction, God is the one holding my hand and gently (or roughly) leading me on to my final home at his side. The surpassing power is his. Excellent.