Clay And Wax

[bigsierra]

I posted this in another thread, but thought it deserved it's own.

~ ~ CLAY AND WAX ~ ~
(Joni Eareckson Tada)
"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." 1 Peter 4:12-13
Hardened clay is brittle, easily damaged. If dropped, it can fracture into a thousand pieces. Dropped wax, however, only bends from the pressure of the fall. Impressionable and pliable, it can be quickly remolded.
People are like that. People who are hardened in their resolve against God are brittle, their emotions are easily damaged. But those who bend to the will of God find perfect expression in however God molds them.
"The same sun that hardens clay, melts wax." That's true. There is no change or variation in the sun itself. It's just the way the clay or wax responds. Trials and suffering will harden some just like breakable clay, baking in bitterness and resentment. The same circumstances can melt others, teaching them patience and endurance. The trials have no value or intrinsic meaning in themselves. It's the way we respond to those trials that makes all the difference. ~ ~

 

[Michelina]

That is a great post, Scott!

Loving Obedience, Humility and Spiritual Docility are the way to dispose ourselves to being transformed into Christ by the Holy Spirit. Our Blessed Mother gave us the best example of that when she gave her Fiat:

Be it done unto me according to your word.​

 

[Irenaeus]

A piece from St. Augustine that I always liked...




CITY OF GOD, BOOK 1, CHAPTER 8 -- OF THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES WHICH OFTEN INDISCRIMINATELY ACCRUE TO GOOD AND WICKED MEN.

Will some one say, Why, then, was this divine compassion extended even to the ungodly and ungrateful? Why, but because it was the mercy of Him who daily "maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." For though some of these men, taking thought of this, repent of their wickedness and reform, some, as the apostle says, "despising the riches of His goodness and long-suffering, after their hardness and impenitent heart, treasure up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds:" nevertheless does the patience of God still invite the wicked to repentance, even as the scourge of God educates the good to patience. And so, too, does the mercy of God embrace the good that it may cherish them, as the severity of God arrests the wicked to punish them. To the divine providence it has seemed good to prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things, which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented. But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both; that we might not too eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy, nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often suffer. There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by those events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world's happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness. Yet often, even in the present distribution of temporal things, does God plainly evince His own interference. For if every sin were now visited with manifest punishment, nothing would seem to be reserved for the final judgment; on the other hand, if no sin received now a plainly divine punishment, it would be concluded that there is no divine providence at all. And so of the good things of this life: if God did not by a very visible liberality confer these on some of those persons who ask for them, we should say that these good things were not at His disposal; and if He gave them to all who sought them, we should suppose that such were the only rewards of His service; and such a service would make us not godly, but greedy rather, and covetous. Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.

Go St. Augustine!!!

 

[marciadietrich]

Our priest shared something he had gotten via email with us one Sunday that has some similarities to this, where instead of wax and clay in the sun it was different items thrown in boiling water. I think it was an egg, a carrot or a coffee bean. The egg hardens, the carrot gets soft but neither change the water, where the coffee bean would flavor the water. So that basically the same circumstances of life will yield different reactions depending on what we are by nature.

Marcia