Genesis 2:7-8                        Trusting the Potter’s Hands

      Sometimes we hear people speak of someone as being a “self-made man.”  I know what they mean when they say that: that the person they are talking about did not begin life with a fortune; that they worked their way “up the ladder” to where they are today.  But the expression is a poor one. There is no such thing as a “self-made man.”  God has given every one of us, every ability we have.  We owe everything we have and everything we are to Him. 

     We are reminded of that in the Creation story of Genesis 2, where we find a re-telling of God’s creation of man.  In verses 7-8 there are3 verbs which specify for us what God did for that first man – and what he does for each one of us as well.  They serve as a good reminder of how dependent we are upon the Lord, how we need to look to Him to be our help, and how we should trust Him with every one of our circumstances.

 I.  He formed us.

:7 “The Lord God formed the man.”

     The Hebrew word “formed” (yasar) is the same word used of a potter, who skillfully shapes a pot with his own hands.  That is what God has done with us.  He “shaped” us.  Psalm 139:13 says: “For You formed my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  Now, this is something we all “know” – “God made me” is one of the first lessons our preschoolers learn in Sunday School.  But I think there is still a lot of room for the practical application of this truth in our daily attitudes. 

     God “formed” us, like a potter does a pot.  Romans 9 asks the question, will the pot say to the potter: “Why have You made me like this?”  The implied answer is, “Of course not!”  But the truth is, in real life, a number of us DO ask God why He has made us the way He did.  Maybe we ask it outright, or maybe it is just a subconscious question: “Why aren’t I smarter?”  “Why aren’t I taller?”  “Why aren’t I better looking than I am?” “Why aren’t I a better athlete?”  “Why aren’t I ______ (whatever)?”  Although it may not be saying it outright, ultimately it IS asking the Potter why He made us this way.

     Our response as Christians is to affirm by faith what this verse and others teach: “The Lord God formed (YOU!)”.  You are not the way you are by accident.  God formed you like a potter shapes a pot.  He knit you together in your mother’s womb, Psalm 139 says.  That means that He has purposes for the way He made you.  Is there a strength in your life?  Thank GOD for it – HE is the One who gave you that strength.  Glorify God as you use it.          

     A few years back, when our son Michael was a young elementary school student, someone commented on how good his grades were, and how he was able to memorize well, and he said to them something like: “Yeah, God made me smart.”  I heard him, and he didn’t say it with an attitude of pride; he was just being very matter-of-fact.  He knew he was intelligent; but most importantly, he realized that it was GOD who made him that way.    

     We should all be more like that.  You should realize that the strengths and abilities you have are from God.  You are not “self-made.”  Even your ability to work hard, and persevere, is from God, who gives you every good quality you have.

     But by the same token, the God who formed each also formed the inherent weaknesses in our lives.  Recognize that GOD made you that way – not as an excuse to sin – but knowing that He even has plans to glorify Himself through your weaknesses as well.   

     Remember, Moses said that he was “slow of speech” and couldn’t lead the people of Israel out of Egypt.  But God was the one who made him the way he was – if he was “slow of speech”, then God made him that way.  But He used that weakness for His glory.  Because Moses was not a dynamic leader, when God brought Israel out of Egypt, it made it obvious that it was God who was doing it, and that it wasn’t just Moses’ natural ability.  In the same way, God has “formed” you, and has purposefully given you both weaknesses and strengths.  You are to use BOTH to glorify Him who made you. 

     This whole concept should engender a basic humility about our lives.  We are nothing.  We are formed from the dust of the ground by God.  God said to Adam in Genesis 3:19 “By the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  There is nothing inherently “great” about us; we are DUST!  We are whatever we are beyond dust because God formed us into something more.  We need to acknowledge the Master Potter who made us, and trust His purposes for doing so just the way He did!  He has given you BOTH strengths and weaknesses – for His own purposes.  I think this is a truth that we all “know” – but as a practical matter, we often don’t apply it.  Some of us need to really hear this word tonight from Genesis 2:7, “The Lord God formed the man” – and by faith  understand that He formed YOU too – strengths and weaknesses alike!

 II.  He breathes into us.

:7b “He breathed into His nostrils the breath of life.”

     As we saw in that first point, we are merely “dust”, formed by God into something more special.  And when God had formed the man, this passage says, “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”  We are dead and lifeless without God.  It is HE who “breathes into us the breath of life.”  This means a couple of important things for us today:

     First of all, if there is the breath of life in you today, that is God’s blessing!  Thank Him for it!  Don’t take it for granted! 

     I have had people with asthma, or COPD, tell me how panicked they get when they can’t breathe.  I can see why that would be; there have been a very few times in my life when I was unable to breathe well, and it gets right to the core of your being; you have to be able to breathe, to live!  The breath of life is a blessing from God.    

     The Bible tells us here that the only reason that ANY of us are breathing today is the fact that GOD has breathed into us the breath of life!  God breathed into this first man and gave him life – and He does the same for every living creature.  Psalm 104:29-30 says of God’s creation and sustaining of all life: “You send forth Your spirit (literally, His “breath”!) and they are created … You take away their spirit (literally “breath”!), they expire, and return to their dust.”  The Bible tells us that it is GOD who gives and takes away breath from every living creature.  So if we are breathing today, we should thank God!

     This might add a special slant to Psalm 150’s admonition: “Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord.”  I remember when our son Paul was little, and I taught him to memorize Psalm 150, which ends, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”  He would quote that Psalm, and breathe in and out, as if to say, “I’ve got breath!” and then he’d say, “Praise the Lord!”  We should do the same thing.  If you’re breathing today, you should praise God for it – for it is HE who has given you that ability, which, like so many of the blessings God gives us, we usually take for granted.

B.  But I think there might also be a deeper, symbolic meaning here as well.  It is God’s breath that makes anything special about us.  God formed man from the dust of the ground.  That’s nothing special – DUST!  And yet there is something glorious about us; we were made in the image of God, Genesis 1 says. “You have made him a little lower than the angels”, Psalm 8 says.  There is much glory and worth and ability in man.  But what we need to realize is that everything good in us comes from God.  HE breathed into our nostrils the breath of life.  HE is the One who has taken dust and breathed into it.  Were it not for God’s breathing, none of us would be anything but dust!  Only He can make us “come alive” with His Spirit and power. 

     In Ezekiel 37, God shows Ezekiel the valley of the dry bones, and asks him if they can live.  Ezekiel rightly replied: “O Lord YHWH, You know!”  And God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones, and flesh came back on them, and skin covered them again, but they had no breath.  And God told Ezekiel to prophesy again, and God’s breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet.  And God told Ezekiel to tellIsrael, “I will put My Spirit within you, and you will come to life … then you will know that I, the Lord have spoken and done it, declares the Lord.” 

    Here God showed Ezekiel that it is only HE who can “breathe life” into something, and make it live: whether it is a person, or a group of people, a cause, a church, a denomination.  The only reason that anything succeeds is that God “breathes” into it His “breath”, His life. 

     I shared this morning about our church’s great start to the New Year.  We had set an ambitious goal of increasing our Sunday School to over 600, and even to 650 by year’s end – and it turned out, we made that goal on the FIRST Sunday of the year!  Now, we usually get off to a good start in January – but nothing like that!  What is neat is that we didn’t “plan” any “emphasis” – God just did it!  He is breathing His life into us, and doing what only He can do! 

     It reminds me of the story of the Oklahoma pastor a number of years ago, who was trying to keep his lawn alive in a drought.  He said he dragged hoses all over the yard, and tried to keep everything watered, but it wasn’t doing any good; the ground just soaked it all up, and everything was still dying.  Then, he said, some dark clouds formed, and a front came through, and it POURED rain.  He said: “God did more in 30 minutes than I did all day!” 

     It makes ALL the difference when God is in something.  It makes all the difference when He “breathes” into something His “breath of life.”  That is why we need to make seeking Him our greatest priority.   We need His presence; we need His blessing more than anything else.  It doesn’t mean that we are not responsible to do what He has called us to do: we need to be faithful to “reach and teach and care” and “give and pray and go.”  But when all is said and done, it is only GOD who can really “breathe the breath of life” that this church needs!    

    Maybe you need a “fresh breath of air” in your personal life, or family, or in your Sunday School class, or some other particular area of your life.  Ask God tonight for what only HE can do – ask Him to “breathe” into that area, His “breath of life”, which will make all the difference. 

 III.  He places us. 

:8 “There He placed the man” 

     This is a third action that God performed on behalf of the man: He formed him; He breathed into him the breath of life, and now we see that He placed him in the Garden that He had prepared for him.  This was no “random” placement.  God prepared the MAN: He shaped him like a potter shapes a pot, and breathed into him the breath of life.  God prepared the PLACE: :8 says He “planted a Garden toward the east, inEden.”  And then it says God PLACED the man exactly where He wanted him, in that garden.

     And God does the same thing with all of His people, too.  I Peter 1 opens with a very revealing verse, in which Peter addresses his letter “to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.”  The word “scattered” there is a Greek Bible word that means to be “strategically placed.”  Those early Christians were not “randomly scattered” around; they had been “strategically placed” where they were by God.  They were where they were for a reason: God wanted to use them in all of those different places, to spread the news of His kingdom. 

     And just like God “placed” Adam, and “placed” those early believers, you need to realize that He has “placed” you right where He wants you to be, too.  Why are you where you are right now?  Why are you in this country, this state, this job, this church, this life situation right now?  God has placed you there for His purposes.  Now, many of us would have to admit that for the most part, where God has placed us is a cause for thanksgiving, isn’t it?  We are excited about the opportunity we have as a church to reach out and help start a new school and church in Tigri, India, in the slum there.  But think about it — God could have placed YOU in Tigri, India!  It could have been YOU who was born there!  I tell you, it makes you think, and it makes you want to be more generous to the people there, when you think that it is only by the grace and the placement of God that it is not YOU who is waiting over there for the generosity of someone over here to help you!  Most of us have SO much to be thankful for in God’s placement of our lives.  We should be embarrassed at how much we complain about it!

     Then there are times when the scenario in which God has placed us does not seem to be a cause for thanksgiving.  But even then, we need to see by faith that He has placed us where we are for His purposes.  Joseph in the Old Testament is a good example of that.  Why did he get thrown into the pit by His brothers?  Why did he find himself as a servant in Potiphar’s house?  Why did he end up in prison, of all places, when he hadn’t done anything to deserve it?  Yet as we know, ALL of it worked together for God’s kingdom’s purpose.  He used Joseph’s circumstances to save his family, and preserve and prepare the nation which would come out of Egypt and become the Nation of Israel, which would produce our Savior.  God had “placed” Joseph there for a reason!  Even though it was uncomfortable and painful, he was exactly where God wanted him to be. 

     The same thing was true of a young lady, who married a man from a foreign country.  But then he died, and she had nowhere to go, so she lived with her mother-in-law of all things!  They had no money, so she got by day-to-day, just going out and doing whatever jobs she could find, basically relying on the generosity of others, in a foreign land.  Why was she in a place like this?  Perhaps she never really knew.  Though her circumstances got better towards the end, she never really saw all of God’s purposes unfold.  But the scriptures give us a hint, at the end of her story, when it says to Boaz (this woman’s husband) was born Obed, “and to Obed was born Jesse, and to Jesse, David” the king.  It turned out that with all the hardships that Ruth went through — as bad as they seemed at the time – God had placed her exactly where He wanted her, so that He could produce David the King – and the “Son of David”, Jesus Christ Himself, through her. 

     All this just goes to remind us that we need to trust God with our circumstances today. You may think that you are in a “bad place” – but the truth is that you are right where God has placed you right now.  He has a purpose in having you just where you are: like Adam, in your physical location, or in the job you have, or in your marriage, or your family or some other circumstance of your life.  Now, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to improve your circumstances when you can – God wants you to do that, and He can help you to do that, and He will build character in you as you do.  But you should also trust that God has you – and WILL have you – placed just where He wants you.  “He PLACED” you – just as surely as He did Adam in the Garden – for His own purpose.  It our responsibility to trust God’s placement, and to look for His purposes in it – for us, for others, and for His kingdom. 

 CONCLUSION:

It really all boils down to trust – it always does in the Christian life, which is all about walking by faith.  We need to learn to trust the God who made us, with every facet of our lives: 

–We need trust that He made us just the way He wanted us – with both the strengths and weaknesses that He would use for His glory. 

–We need to trust that He will “breathe” into us every breath and inspiration and blessing for everything He wants to accomplish through us. 

–And we need to trust that He has placed us exactly where He wants us to be, for His kingdom’s purposes, His honor and His glory.  We need to put our trust in the Master Potter’s hands!