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In the essence of faith, a person will either learn how to soar above the storms, or crash into the deepest sea. Sometimes, it takes crashing in the sea multiple times to learn how to fly. The definition of faith is best described in Hebrews 11:1. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen". (Hebrew-English Bible) Faith is believing and trusting in God when circumstances do not look good.
Moreover, it requires placing faith in God when everything in life appears to be falling apart. Metaphorically speaking, faith is tested and tried through shaping, molding, pulling, stretching as the creator forms the clay. During the refining process, the maker will place the clay in the furnace with intense heat, in order to create a masterpiece. The process is brutal and painful for a human in the furnace. The furnace is where faith is tested and tried.
Nevertheless, a masterpiece cannot be developed without a creator sculpting it. James West, a master potter, referred to turning the clay on a wheel as a method, which connects the maker and the clay like no other. Faith connects a person (the clay), to its maker, like nothing else can. It is through people and circumstances that faith ends up in the fiery furnace, used as a tool, to shape the clay.
A few examples of the burning furnace include the death of a loved one, losing a job, or going through a divorce. These are the times when faith, like pottery, is beaten, shaped, molded and placed in a fiery kiln. Clay can be stubborn and difficult to mold at first just like people. In Isaiah 45:9 God said, “Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, "what are you making? or shall your handiwork say, He has no hands?"
Faith can be destroyed or shaken by looking to things or people rather than God. A few examples are placing faith in a job title, money, man, woman, people or other things. The Bible warns to put faith in no man (human).
"Thus says the Lord: cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land". Jeremiah 17:56 (ESV). When faith is put in anything other than God, it will falter. Usually, it is through many trials, errors and crashing in the depths of the sea before faith is placed solely in God.
Could it be because God is not seen in the physical? Do we, as a people like the Israelite's, have a tendency to place our faith in something tangible? Having to see it; is not faith at all, according to the Bible. In times when faith is a struggle; remember, the master creator (GOD), always has a plan in the shaping of clay.
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". (NIV) When faith is burned or beaten; it is being tested and tried. Without this process no masterpiece can be born.
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