It’s called Theraputty.
To four-year-old Ava, it was "firm play dough." My wife somehow acquired a plastic tub of the green stuff used in exercise regimens to strengthen muscles and joints. At $27 per pound on Amazon, it’s not cheap. But it is fun.
Sitting at the kitchen table, we spent hours crafting shapes and critters of all sizes. I attempted a cat, but Ava wondered where the front legs were. Appropriately chastised, I made a horse that did have four legs. This Ava immediately trotted off to her personal pasture.
My next attempt was a cube, which she plucked up for her own purposes.
Finally, I attempted a pyramid (which turned out to be surprisingly challenging). Not ten seconds after completion, this was repurposed into an appendage of some kind on Ava’s ghost.
None of this reallocation of putty resources was mean-spirited. Ava was just having fun—at my expense.
Still, I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit it was a bit disconcerting. I was proud of what I had made. I kinda wanted those things to stay around—for at least 30 seconds. Those were my creations made with my playdough. Or Theraputty. Or whatever (and here, I sound like a four-year-old).
We smile. But that playful protest of mine is not so different than our response to God. When He takes our grandiose plans and dreams and shapes them into something entirely different than we've envisioned, our first response is usually to complain rather than comply.
It’s so easy to get spun up. But what’s God’s perspective?
We get more than a hint in Romans 9:20-21, “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ;Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?”
Are you willing to be putty for Jesus?
Willing to let Him remold your agenda?
Willing to release your grip on what is in glad exchange for what might be?
Next time you feel like God has rolled you up and then stretched you out— and your life looks very little like your dreams, come back to earth. Come back to humility. We are, after all, just clay.
But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
-Isaiah 64:8