The Clay Pot Principle (or, Why They Can’t Make My Sons Lust)
The sun has risen, new mercies dawning, and golden rays slant ‘cross The Three. The steam, it curls upward like heart’s murmur rising, and I’m savoring caramel-flavored caffeine. “Ask. Seek. Knock.” That’s what He said, “and you’ll receive, you will find, doors will open.” There’s simplicity, I believe, in His way of livin’, and I’m takin’ Lord Christ at His word. So I ask Him…
This is not a post about clothes, nor is it a post about modesty. Lord knows, enough has been written about those topics from here clear on out to kingdom come that a person’s head is flat spinnin’. Seems like everyone knows what I should or shouldn’t wear, how I should or shouldn’t live, what God says I should or shouldn’t do until I’m near to suffocatin’. I’m chokin’.
“Simplicity,” Paul said, “is in Christ. So don’t let the serpent beguile you.”
Simplicity.
I’m sittin’ in my happy place today, sippin’ my Starbucks on the BOS (You Know), and I’m talkin’ to Jesus about shame. Shame and bodies.
When Jesus lived here and taught folks, He used lots of word pictures to get His point across, and He does it like that with me, too. And all at once, I’m seein’ clay pots. And I ‘get’ it.
“I’m a clay pot,” I say out loud, “and He is my Potter. It’s like I’m His craft project. He molded me on His wheel, formed me with His fingers. I’m His unique, one-of-a-kind, special pot. There can be no shame in His work.” Then this, “And so is everyone else.”
So I’m thinkin’ on pots, how each one is different, but each one is fabulous by Design(er). And I’m thinkin’ about my boys and what this means.
You-all know I don’t have any girls, so we don’t have any of those issues. But I have boys who like girls and want to marry ’em. Some day. And the world and many in the church have a message for my boys, and it’s one I no longer agree with.
That’s this, “You are captive to your lust. Girls (women) are sexual objects, and you are helpless at the hands of this temptation.” Glorious pots, crafted, I see, male and female, every one for a purpose.
“Once again Jesus called the crowd to Him and said, ‘All of you, listen to Me and understand: Nothing that enters a man from the outside can defile him, but the things that come out of a man, these are what defile him. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear (Mark 7:14-16).’”
Simplicity. It’s found in Christ.
It’s what’s within that matters, that counts. It’s the desire of one’s heart in every area of life that determines the guilt or the innocence. Not what comes from outside.
If a man has a heart controlled by lust, then no amount of rules can make him stop, and the regulating of others won’t, either.
If a woman has a heart controlled by envy, then giving her more do’s and don’ts won’t change her, and the regulating of others won’t, either. Transformation must come within one’s own heart and mind.
So. I will no longer teach my boys that it is inevitable that they will lust at the simple sight of a girl. No matter what she is or isn’t wearing. It seems to me it’s an insult to them to suggest it, as though they were animals without rational thought, choice, or control.
Further, if that is true, then I am helpless when I’m tempted to envy, or hate, or shade the truth, or to gossip. Then I am completely at the whim of everyone else around me, and the power of choice has deserted me.
And that’s not true.
No one else can cause me to envy. Or hate or shade truth or to gossip. They can’t. Whatever is in my heart, that is what I will do.
Further, what I want to teach our boys is the beauty–and simplicity–of the “Clay Pot Principle.” You are not shameful for having one. You are not sinning by admiring one.
Girls are not shameful for being lovely ones, and you don’t have to lust when you see one. Period.
We are all, men and women, boys and girls, older/younger, created to hold the same thing, precious contents–our own human souls and God’s Spirit. That’s what I’m truly coming to know. And that is transforming my mind…about bodies. About people, clay pots, His hand’s crafting.
This is what I want our sons to know. No human being is a sexual object. All of us are lovingly crafted, and all of us can walk in integrity and purity. And truth.
Simplicity. It is found in Lord Christ.
Blessed be God!