The Masterpiece and the Honest Question
Ultimately, we must realize that we are masterpieces being crafted within the vessel of time. Paul wrote to Timothy that in a large house, there are various kinds of vessels. However, he emphasized that if anyone cleanses himself, he will be a “vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master” (2 Timothy 2:21). Being a vessel of honor is not about our rank in the eyes of men, but about our readiness to be used by God right now. Yet, the process involves the intense heat of the fire and a shaping process that is never brief. Remember Joseph. His waiting happened through bitter life experiences: thrown into a pit, sold as a slave, and forgotten in a dark prison (Genesis 41:39-41). Joseph was being shaped like pottery in the hands of the Great Potter.
As Corrie ten Boom famously said, “God has no problems, only plans.” Her life proved that God’s timing is an act of supreme love. “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). However, as we sit in this furnace of patience, a new tension inevitably rises within the soul. When the “four days” of Lazarus become four years, or when the prison walls of Joseph seem to never move, our souls begin to cry out. Is it wrong to ask why? “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:25).
We are moving into Day 15, where we will discover that God’s patience is large enough to hold our loudest cries. We will see that true faith is not the absence of questions, but the courage to bring those questions to the only One who can answer them. “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope” (Psalm 130:5-6). Before the vessel is filled with the wine of joy, it must often be emptied of its illusions through the sacred room of doubt. We are being prepared not just to trust God’s clock, but to trust His heart when the clock seems to have stopped.
Divine clock works in silent and holy grace,
Heaving anchors within the vast and deep sea,
Baking clay inside the hot and burning fire,
Filling empty jars with oil for the night,
Breaking pride until the soul becomes purely gold,
Waiting in shadows until the morning sun rises,
Trusting His heart when the world moves fast.
Livora Gracely 
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