Entry One

If you had been reading my blog on Honduras previous to this, you may already know where the title comes from.  Keeping in the same line of thought and focus as the previous blog, I decided to name this one "The Journey of a Jar" after the passage in 2 Corinthians 4 posted at the top of the page.  God's scripture is so beautiful but this passage specifically has held special meaning for me the past year.  Through the difficulties of the Honduras adventure, God was teaching me that my one purpose in life is a treasure holder.  A keeper of the Gospel.  Because of the pricelessness of the treasure we hold, I constantly make the mistake of trying to be the most beautiful treasure holder I can possibly be.  There are two reasons I do it: (1) I want to be worthy of the treasure I hold, and (2) I want to appear appealing to the world so that not only will I be accepted, but so that the treasure I hold will be accepted as well.
 

Our purpose is to hold the treasure.  That is what we were made for and called to just as we are.  In God's beautiful design of using the weak to shame the strong and the foolish to shame the wise (1 Cor 2), he chose to use simple, unworthy vessels to hold his treasure.  Plain, ordinary, maybe awkward, maybe ugly, maybe quirky, maybe rough around the edges, but definitely nothing without the treasure inside.  The jar is worthy as it is because (and only because) the creator decided it was worthy and put his treasure inside.  My constant battle is being jealous of the empty the vessels that all sparkle and shine, and remembering that it is what I hold, not how I appear that gives me my worth (and not physical appearance, but everything about me, personality, abilities, etc.).  Furthermore, it is a struggle to remember that God has not required sparkle and shine from me.  Even if I desire it for "good" reasons, thinking that the treasure I hold demands a better looking vessel for it, dressing myself up is an empty pursuit of trying to be worthy of holding a treasure that I will never have any right to hold.

But the second side to that struggle, as I mentioned before, is trying to convince the world that the treasure is valuable, which is hard to do in a world that likes to only look at outward appearances.  You see a plain jar, you automatically think it cannot contain anything of value and you move on.  So I try to dress myself up with self-righteous speech and wholesome lifestyle, seeking social skills and catchy messages, with the outward appearance of a good person with an unoffensive air, attempting to make myself as acceptable to the world as possible that they might accept my treasure as well.  But if this is the work that I give my life to: making the treasure look good by making myself look good, I miss the entire point of the life to which we are called.   And I struggle with missing it day after day.  The treasure is worthy by itself; if it is only accepted because the fanciness of the jar holding it, it is not really accepted in the way it is meant to be.

And there are a dozen other analogies I could draw, but that would make for a very long entry.

So to sum up: I am an unworthy jar, battling to be as unembellished as possible and okay with it, and in this blog you will find snippets of my journey.