Vessels

Start here: A magnificent life

Photo by Yusuf Evli on Unsplash

Welcome back, I changed the name.

I had to do it. I had been dragging my feet (or dragging my knuckles, as my dad likes to say, a hilarious mental image) because I didn’t know what I wanted to change it to. Saviour, You Think — the previous name — was inspired by a line from a Josh Garrels song (from his Christmas album, in fact, which is one of my favourite albums and I listen to it all year ‘round). The line is: «Some call Him Jesus, I think I’ll call Him ‘Saviour’». It’s a statement of simultaneous belief and unbelief, and when I started writing here, that was true. I knew I’d been saved by God, but I didn’t know what to do with Jesus. But I took His advice to come, and see and after almost a year of coming and seeing, I’ve moved from “I think I’ll call Him ‘Saviour’” to “I’ll stake my life on Him”, warranting the name change.

In its place, I felt sure of the name the Lord was giving me: Vessels. Something about the humble nature of a vessel — a transmitter of Something other than itself — resonated. Something, too, about the relationship in Scripture between vessels, honour, and mercy felt personally profound. And since I feel like my natural state is more idol than vessel, Vessels gave me such a feeling of excitement — like I had been given a real vision for my life, maybe for the first time.

Esther was a vessel. I’m a big fan of Esther but I’m an even bigger fan of Mordecai, who was the one who pointed out to Esther that her real value came from entering into the adventure of being a vessel of God (Esther 4: 13, 14):

Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

The inspiring message of «for such a time of this» is importantly predicated by the reminder that «for if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise from another place». God’s plan is going to happen. And I think that’s the beauty of being a vessel: though it could be anyone, it can be me. Full agency and full surrender. Vessels, of the variety I’d like to be, are ones who accept the mercy and invitation of the living God to enter into His Plan, a plan comprised of “far more abundantly than all that we can ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20), but at the cost of 100% of my plan. And either way — invitation accepted or not — the Plan is happening.

So there I had it — Vessels — and I went to secure the subdomain. But the subdomain was taken and so I had a snit. I reasoned that I needed an adjective. I asked God to give me an adjective. He told me He already had.

About eight months ago, when God really saved me, and when my life looked nothing like what I thought and hoped it would approaching 30, I felt the Lord promising me: your life with Me will be magnificent.

Hear me when I say that ‘magnificent’ does not, in my head, translate to ‘everything I want in the way and form I want it’. In fact, it probably means the contrary, since ‘everything I want in the way and form I want it’ is actually how I ended up the counterfeit god of my life. No — I knew that magnificent would probably mean many things I couldn’t comprehend. But I was ready to be surprised by God instead of disappointed by myself.

Around the same time (though I completely failed to make the connection), God reignited in my heart a love for the Magnificat, Mary’s prayer in Luke 1 (my mum had me memorize it when I was younger, which I am thankful for). Mary opens her prayer with: «My soul magnifies the Lord». As I’ve spent the last year believing God’s word to me that life with Him is magnificent, even when circumstances can humanly be described otherwise, the central part of the word magnificent is slowly being revealed to me as the process of magnifying: my life is magnificent when I am a vessel to magnify my God. So when I read Mary’s words, I don’t only read words of praise. I read a recognition that her life’s purpose was to be a conduit of God’s plan. Put differently by John the Baptist (John 3:30):

He must increase, but I must decrease.

This is such a season of concentrated surrender in what seems like every aspect of my life, all at once (which I feel like I’ve been saying for a year and so I wonder if this is the way it is now?). And every time I do or am inclined to do something to forcibly alter my life into the state I wish it to be in, I feel the Lord saying to me: Do you remember what it was like when you were “in control”? At the height of your own god-ness, do you remember your own misery? You are a terrible god. He says it kindly, and logically, and it’s true. I was an abject failure at godhood. I was the most counterfeit of gods.

When I said to God: “I’ll find my calling and secure my own future”, I chose situations of counterfeit purpose, chained to a desk at a fancy law firm with truckloads of student debt and crippling interest rates, and an insatiable addiction to praise.

When I said to God: ‘I’ll find my own husband”, I chose situations of counterfeit wifedom, and profound loneliness, and a kind of unceasing fear and anxiety that gives you chills and makes you want to vomit at the same time.

When I said to God: “I’ll become beautiful”, I chose counterfeit beauty and an eating disorder, and I very nearly lost my mind in the lies.

He reminds me, often, that the best I could come up with downright terrible. And I’m so thankful He does. The simple and gentle logic of it encourages my journey of surrender in a way way fear or coercion never could.

So I came to feel a sense of peace about Magnificent Vessels as the subdomain, even though no one probably even cares about the subdomain. (I’m happy to have explained my journey regardless.) For the record, it could have just as easily have been Vessels of Magnificence, since the point is that in entering this journey with Christ I am a vessel of His magnificence and therefore my life is made magnificent. Both bear equal potential to sound hilariously arrogant, but I hope it won’t be read that way.

I do not know what God will do with me and my life and my time and my vessel-hood, but I am unbelievably excited and expectant. Sometimes I catch myself daydreaming, like a child, and even then I remind myself — excitedly — that I am unable to even begin to ask or think of all He will do. So I wait.

Thank you for being here. My prayer with every post is a learned one: may every word I write disappear from your mind and heart, and may every word He writes with my fingers as His vessels stand forever.