Mulligan!!

Jeremiah 18:3-4 -- "3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make."

Photo © 2013 Jay Graham - jaygraham.com

Inside my favorite pair of tennis shoes I could hear my toes squeak as my very wet socks rubbed between the souls of my feet and the bottom of my sneakers. Twinkles of early morning sunlight blinked through the branches of the trees that bordered the golf-course and I could see the copious amount of tiny water droplets clinging to the crisply shorn grass on the green.

Dad Dalton and Steven kept crunching through the dew-laden blades as I struggled to act like I knew what I was doing - lugging my clubs clumsily on my shoulder and trying to keep up with their long easy strides.

It was sweet of them to let me tag along. For starters, I'd never played a round of golf  in my life and I KNOW I was slowing them down. Further more - it was clearly meant to be a Father/Son outing, and yet there I was, trudging along like a kid sibling that didn't want to be left out.

Lining up the put just as Dad Dalton taught me, I aimed for the ridiculously small hole in the middle of a large, lush green space and held my breath. Tense with anticipation, I watched the hole after I made my swing. Chuckles came from the Dalton gang to my right. I looked down near my feet to see that I'd completely missed the ball. It lay there, still and quiet, mocking my efforts...

I looked up at two of the men I admired most in my life and sheepishly called out "mulligan!" - then lined up my put for the second time and finally made contact with the golf ball.

You can guess how it played out. Six strokes later I finally picked up the evil little white ball and physically put it into the cup - begging the two smiling Daltons to just put a three by my niche on the score card. [I learned they weren't even keeping my score.]

Sigh - I wanted to mulligan my entire "game" - it was so very, very marred. For the first time in my existence I totally understood the meaning of the mulligan/do over.

It would be nice if life were that easy to remedy. Just -- ball up the whole thing/experience that went awry and do it over again. No pain. No frustration....as simple as Jeremiah's potter reshaping the clay into something of which he would be proud.

But it really isn't simple. It takes effort, dedication, and a great deal of skill to shape clay into art. Even more so when the clay has already partially been formed. Reshaping, chiseling, molding -- and intimate care has to be taken to turn a "mistake" into a "masterpiece". And more often than not - it's the clay at fault - NOT the potter. Something a little off in the mix, perhaps?

image: wordpress.com

....or in our case - a little stubbornness? We are the clay and our Father is the Potter, after all - when we try to form ourselves or push against the Potter's will - disaster results.

It's a good thing The Potter can reshape and ultimately grant us each a mulligan. [sometimes, more than one!] He can take a thing that we've messed up beyond recognition - and turn it into something worthy of a place in the ultimate of all galleries - in the company of Jesus, our Savior and THE Father, Himself!

In fact - we've been granted the ultimate mulligan. We've been given the chance to be completely re-born!! We don't have to walk around in the muck and mire of our original sin-laden package! We can allow Jesus to REform us!

THAT is a beautiful thing!!

Thank you, thank you, God!!

Dear Lord, take this mess of a "game" I've created and make it into something full of your beauty and grace!