12.28.20

My cousin Nick gave me a book for Christmas titled Run With The Horses, by Eugene Peterson, about the life of the prophet Jeremiah. I highly reccomend it. In the Preface of this book, it includes this ancient proverb:

It tells the story of a young girl whose morning chore it was to walk to the river and fetch water for her household. Suspended from a pole across her shoulders were two water pots that supplied her family’s daily needs. One of the pots was perfect, but the other one was cracked, and by the time they made the return trip home each day, the second pot was only half full. After some time, the little cracked pot, ashamed that she wasn’t able to function at full capacity, expressed her embarrassmeent and sense of failure to the girl. “Why do you keep using me when all I do is leak?” she asked. “Why don’t you replace me with a new pot?” Smiling the girl responded, “Have you seen the beautiful flowers that grow along the path between the house and the river? And have you noticed that they only grow on your side of the path as we walk home together? That’s because every spring I plant seeds on only your side, knowing that you will water them as we walk home together. I’ve been picking those flowers for years and filling our home with fragrance and beauty. I couldn’t do it without you. What you thought was a flaw is actually a gift to us all.

What I learned through the life of Jeremiah and this proverb is that we are all just a bunch of cracked pots. We leak. But we were wonderfully designed this way, so that the blessings might flow.

The aspects of ourselves we view as flaws, may be Gods greatest weapon to use for His kingdom. The cracks in our lives mean we are always leaking through the hands of God. I just hope and pray that God allows me to see all He is doing through my own shortcomings and imperfections. For when I am weak, He is strong.