Broken Pieces Make Good Grog
Ceramic pottery has been used for thousands of years. It is made from clay that has been molded and heated to high temperatures in order to make the clay hard. The clay reaches temperatures so high that the chemical composition of the clay changes. Pottery can be painted and glazed to become beautiful works of art. Besides it's beauty and versatility, the pottery is very durable. Many vessels have withstood the test of time, even for millenia.
What happens to pottery that becomes damaged or broken? Even the smallest crack can render a pot unusable.
Broken vessels are not just thrown out. Many potters will take the broken pieces of the clay vessels and crush them into dust. The technical term for that dust is called "grog."
The grog is then thoroughly mixed into fresh clay.
What are the benefits of "grogged" clay?
While drying shrinkage, it can help reduce firing shrinkage. Grogged clay can also help reduce thermal expansion, which means a lower chance of expanding and contracting, when it's being heated in the kiln, which will mean a lower chance of it cracking.
When the new vessel is fired in the kiln, the grog becomes a sort of adhesive — a bonding agent, if you will — causing the clay to be even more durable than it would have been without the clay dust.
We humans are often likened in scripture to pottery. We are vessels made of clay. As such, sin can "break" or "mar" us, having a profound effect on our usefulness or fitness for service.
When the child of God is broken due to sin, the Lord doesn't just throw us out. Rather, he takes our brokenness and refashions us into an even stronger vessel.
So, do you ever feel "crushed" by the weight of your own brokenness and the Lord's refining process, like so much grog on the potter's workbench? Well, Scripture has promised us that the Lord's heart is to "bind up" the wounds of the broken hearted ( Psam 147:3).
That grog, in the hands of a skillful potter, is like a powerful adhesive —a bonding agent — which will bind us back together, stronger than ever! And what's more, it will bond us even closer to the Father's heart!
God is, indeed, the Master Potter who, in His mercy, uses our experience, even our brokenness, to strengthen us and shape us into vessels ever increasingly fit for and worthy of service.
"I am forgotten as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery" (Psalms 31:12, NIV).
"But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him" (Jeremiah 18:4, NIV).
UNBROKEN Hits Theaters and Stirs Hearts
Movie fans flocked to theaters to watch the highly anticipated release of the movie "Unbroken"--the true story of Louie Zamperini, an Olympic athlete who enlisted in WWII to fight in the Pacific against the onslaught of the the Japanese. A bombardier, Louie's plane went down in the ocean where he was lost at sea, afloat on a raft for 47 days.
Nearly succumbing to dehydration, hunger, shark attacks, and storms, Louie made a deal with God to serve Him always if only He would spare his life.
Louie's life was indeed spared, but not by rescue by the US forces as he'd anticipated. Rather, he was found and "rescued" by the Imperial Navy of Japan. He was subsequently imprisoned at a string of Japanese labor camps where he suffered unbearable torture at the hands of his captors until the end of the war.
Upon his rescue and release, he was hailed as a hero. Franklin Graham recounts what followed:
For a time he enjoyed the celebrity of heroism and hob-knobbing with Hollywood. He met and married a beautiful woman named Cynthia Applewhite and life was good. But when all the glitz and glamour faded and reality set in, reoccurring nightmares of war and memories of Louie’s torture by his enemies tormented him.
To escape these horrors, Louie turned to alcohol. Pent-up anger overcame him.
His wife who genuinely loved him felt she had no choice but to divorce him. The man who had endured horrific physical and mental abuse, and emerged unbroken from the ravages of war, had succumbed to an enemy that would not let go -- himself.
In September 1949, Billy Graham was running an evangelistic crusade under a giant tent in downtown Los Angeles. Louie's wife, invited by neighbors, attended the crusade and immediately gave her life to Christ.
Her first act as a new believer was to inform Louie that she had changed her mind (and heart!) and would not divorce him.
She began earnestly inviting Louie to attend the crusade with her. Seeing the changes in his wife, he finally agreed.
Billy Graham, unaware of Zamperini's horrific experience lost at sea, and his fateful "deal" with God if He would but save his life, said these convicting words: “There’s a drowning man, a drowning woman, a drowning boy or girl lost in the sea of life.”
In that moment, Louie walked the aisle and gave his life to Christ.
Graham recounts:
When he returned home from the meeting he poured his liquor down the drain, dumped his girlie magazines in the trash, and crumpled up his cigarettes and disposed of them.
He found a Bible that had been issued by the air corps and began reading. For the first time God’s Word began to make sense to him.
This former prisoner of war had discovered the joy of freedom found in Christ and desired to pass it on to others.
Louie Zamperinis would go on to forgive even those who had held him captive, and lived the rest of his days serving the Savior who rescued his soul.
We are indeed our own worst enemies. As Franklin Graham so eloquently stated, "The man who had endured horrific physical and mental abuse, and emerged unbroken from the ravages of war, had succumbed to an enemy that would not let go -- himself."
Until we come to that place of brokenness--not just physical, emotional or psychological, but spiritual!--we cannot receive the rescue of our souls from the One Who was "broken" for us.
"Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me" (1 Corthinians 11:24, KJV).
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Looking Behind the Mask of Laughter
Much has been said about the "tears of a clown"--the notion that every comic face masks a depressed or troubled soul. The truth is, the research is contradictory at worst and inconclusive at best.
“People think comedians have these really dark personalities, but a lot of people have dark personalities and most of them don’t become comedians. You actually have to be pretty well-adjusted to be successful in the world of entertainment because it’s so competitive,” says Peter McGraw, a psychology and marketing professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and author of The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny.
On the other hand, research from Oxford University published earlier this year surveyed 523 comedians and compared them to a control group:
Their finding? “The creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis—both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder,” study author Gordon Claridge, of the University of Oxford’s Department of Experimental Psychology, told the BBC. He said comedians may use their act as a form of self-medication.
Suffice it to say that relentless jesting may not necessarily mask a deeper struggle within, but it is certainly possible that it might.
Case in point: Jamie Masada, a US comedy club pioneer, observed of his relationship with Robin Williams: "He was always in character - you never saw the real Robin. I knew him 35 years, and I never knew him."
As comedian and philosopher Ben Stein has so aptly observed, "We all wear masks, metaphorically speaking."
If Robin Williams' tragic death teaches us anything at all, it teaches that we must take the time--invest the energy--to look beyond the masks to the heart and soul of the person behind them. We mustn't assume a laughing face is indicative of a light heart. In fact, Scripture gives us this insightful warning: "Laughter can conceal a heavy heart, but when the laughter ends, the grief remains" (Proverbs 14:13, NLT).