I always found modeling clay to be a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong. I loved the vibrant colors, the shapable glob, and the fun machines that could squish it out as ovals, hearts, stars, even as stringy hair to be cut with plastic barber scissors. But if you left it out too long, it would get hard and crumbly. If it got too hot, it would even begin to lose the shape I had formed it into.
Modeling clay reminds me of my heart: it is too easy to misshape when the heat turns up or is left too long exposed to the elements. It loses the form the Creator intended and shaped from the beginning. So being completely honest, maybe I am less disappointed with modeling clay and more disappointed with the condition of my heart and the shape it is in.
My deformed spiritual heart yearns like King David, and calls out to God:
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me
(Ps. 51:10, NKJV).
Only God can reform my heart. With the same cosmic power by which He formed the world and took dust from the ground to contour my shape, only God can breathe a revived Holy Spirit inside me.
May Christ Jesus, the Creator and Redeemer, reform my heart and yours. May His life-giving Spirit resuscitate our passion for His kingdom, reviving the righteous spiritual desire in our lives.
