Finding Purpose Through Authentic ConnectionSample

The Bible is filled with pictures that show us how God sees us. One of my favorites is where he is the potter and I am the clay in his hands. When I look at myself through this picture, I see the One who loves me more than I can imagine taking his time to shape me into something beautiful. He uses every choice I make and every experience I go through in life to form me into someone who is ideally becoming more and more like him.

I’ve not done a lot of work with clay, but I know the potter’s hands always get messy. I don’t think he minds. He’s willing to muddy himself as he shapes me. This picture also tells me that nothing I go through is ever wasted. I’m not the same person I was five years ago, or even five months ago. In the hands of the Potter, I’m constantly changing, and that’s a good thing.

This is where we find the answer to our question Who am I? I am a work in progress in the hands of the One who loves me. I have value and purpose and a reason for existing, not because of what I have done or what I will do, but because this is how God has made me and sees me. When everything else has been stripped away—all the guilt, all the shame, all the disappointments—I stand naked before God, and in his eyes I am beautiful and beloved.

This is who I am, and it is enough.