Vessels of Clay

As I write this blog, I am listening to a segment of the radio/internet broadcast, “Night Sounds” with the late Bill Pearce; my favorite broadcast and broadcaster of all time.

Tonight’s broadcast is entitled, “Vessels of Clay” and deals with human frailty and a tendency among ‘all God’s creatures’ to repeatedly fail in their attempt to mirror the image of the Almighty; (even if they’re ‘trying hard’ to do so).

As Bill opened up the program he observed,

“My father was a minister, and I once asked him, ‘How is it that you preach holiness and righteousness, and all that when none of us are perfect and can’t possibly measure up to God’s expectations?’”

To which Bill’s father so wisely responded,

“Well, we’re all preaching something we’re not. But God uses vessels of clay.”

(Indeed, He does).

And one facet of our clay-like vessels is our subjective-ness to disease.

As I was listening to one of the earlier Night Sounds broadcasts this week, Mr. Pearce reflected,

“I was attempting to pronounce a particular word on a broadcast the other day, aurora borealis, and I found myself struggling to pronounce it correctly. I never did manage it.”

And it occurred to me that Bill was, ultimately, diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, was admitted to a skilled nursing facility and eventually succumbed to the dread malady. How strange it seems to have been given an ‘on-air’ entre into an early symptom of his condition; which at the time the radio host would have considered a benign happenstance. 

And if only for a moment partaking of, as it were, an attribute invested only in the Godhead. 

Omniscience

As God instructed Moses to approach Pharaoh, and when Moses, subsequently, asked God who he say sent him, Jehovah responded with,

“Tell him that ‘I AM’ hath sent you.”

God, the ‘I AM’ of the universe. Not ‘I was, I am, I will be,’ but ‘I AM.’ The ever present, living Creator who was present in our pasts, present in our, well, present, and present in our futures. He who has already been there, knows the number of hairs on our head, each whirl and line within our fingerprints, each day of our lives, and the very day and nature of our passing.

And hearkening back to ‘Night Sounds’ and its eloquent host, it is apparent from tonight’s program that time had progressed since the earlier broadcast to which I alluded, as Mr. Peace refers to his progressing inability to exercise adequate diction.

“I am experiencing an increasing inability to pronounce my words due to a particular malady, and I cannot know when my situation will prevent me from speaking to you. It’s all in the hands of our wonderful Creator.”

It is comforting to know that God had already been there, and it was enough at that moment that God knew, and that nothing in this good man’s life had taken Him unawares. And so it is with each and every one of us.

God, the ever-present One, the ‘I AM’ of all our ways and all our days.


 By William McDonald, PhD. From (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Vol.40. Copyright pending

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