Clay Jars

There’s an area that I pass through on my way home where musicians have started to play once in a while and put out their guitar cases for donations. The past few times it’s been a young man, a garage band rocker playing acoustic songs that I didn’t recognize – either he wrote them or I’m very out of touch which is possible. I used to listen to music all the time and always had my ears out for new bands – I’d go to some of the clubs sometimes, and was always asking friends what they were listening to. When I was in college we made tapes, and later we’d burn CD’s – I have crates of them now that I rarely listen to. I like my quiet now, and for a while after I was born again I didn’t listen to much except for Christian music. It was a really big change for me – I used to be the neighbor everybody either hated or wanted to party with because I played my music loud and always had something on. When I moved into the apartment I live in now, I had neighbors like that. These two guys who were living like a frat house. People were coming and going at all hours of the day and night and the party never ended until they passed out sometime around 6 or 7am. They kept telling my landlord I was lying, and a neighbor of mine told me to call the cops, which I did a few times, and other neighbors did, too, but it only made it worse. I kept asking God why I was going through this – I’d say, “You can stop this, why don’t you stop this?” And He answered, “Because I want you to know you can.”

I started praying for them whenever they woke me up and were crashing around drunk and high, I walked around with olive oil and anointed every door and window I could reach in my apartment and theirs while I prayed. It took a little while, but not that long, and things started to calm down. It got very quiet for a while, and then one Friday night – or rather Saturday morning - all hell broke loose again at 3am when I had to get up at 6 to work with the children in my after school program for a special all day event. I went upstairs to try to reason with the guys, and they were all wired up and ready for a fight. But the Spirit of God is truly more powerful than anything else, and I was able to get one of them to come down to my apartment to hear what I was hearing. When he got there, he tried to say it wasn’t that bad, but then he had to admit it was awful. Then he said, “You just think we’re a couple of really bad boys don’t you,” and I answered that no, I didn’t, that I had been just like them once and hung around with people just like them – had boyfriends and friends just like them, and that I was praying for them. He said, “You don’t have to do that, “ and I answered that I did, that when we are born again that is one of the things that God asks of us, that we pray for other people, even when they are not being kind to us, especially when they are not being kind to us. I said that He had shown me what was going on inside these two guys and they were filled with pain, and that when we see people in pain we need to pray for them.

As I spoke to him, all the anger and jacked up energy went out of his body and he became very calm. He started to tell me about his dreams for his future, that he wanted to buy a house but things were so expensive he didn’t think he’d ever be able to afford one. I told him I’d be praying for that too. After that, I never had a problem with them again. They’d still have parties, but they always ended very early. He started to really settle down when his girlfriend moved in and the other guy moved out, then another couple moved in for a time, and then they all moved somewhere else. Prayer is amazing like that. Sometimes God will allow something to go on past the point of all reason until we finally ask Him what to do. I’d been asking my landlord and my friends, but He was the one who had the answer – He always does. I learned through that experience that I can’t ask anyone else for advice ever – it doesn’t mean they don’t try to give good advice, they do, it’s just that His is the only advice that will actually work 100% of the time.

Last night when I was on my way home, the guy who was playing acoustic guitar in that place where people have started playing was someone new. He was an older man, and he was playing Cat Stevens’ “Morning Has Broken.” I have never been a big Cat Stevens fan – his lyrics are fine, but I was always much more of a rock chick unless it was something from before I was born like Irving Berlin. I like my sappy songs too sometimes, but Cat Stevens was never a favorite. But something in hearing this guy singing that song in that place made me smile at him and I started singing the song all the way home. “Morning has broken, like the first morning.” One of the bar tenders at one of the bars I used to go to all the time played his music all the time. And then of course there was the movie “Harold and Maude.” But something in the way that man sang that song made it come through to me in a new way. I started thinking about the first morning – what must that have been like? When God said “Let there be light,” and there was light for the first time. 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of the darkness," who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Hearing that man sing that song reminded me of that passage of scripture, and of my own first morning of real light when I was born again.

Cat Stevens is now known as Yusuf Islam because he changed his name when He became a Muslim. When I looked up the lyrics of the song, I read all about him, and all about all of the things he supposedly said or did after his conversion. I kept thinking, who cares? I don’t mean that in a mean way at all – I just mean that if you like his music, if it speaks to your heart, who cares what his religious beliefs are? Our world is so tied up in condemning people for what they believe, and so focused on grouping people together in good guys and bad guys. Throughout history people of all different religious beliefs have done all kinds of atrocious things, and people who say they are atheists can be some of the kindest people you could meet. It’s not what we say we are, but what is in our hearts that God looks at. We can talk all the right talk, but we can’t fool Him a bit.

One of my oldest friends is someone who calls herself an atheist. When I say old, I don’t mean in years, but that I have known her for more than half my life, almost three quarters of it. She has always been someone who has done the right thing, has always been honest, and is kind to people who may not have been kind to her. She reaches out to help others all the time, and supports people who would otherwise have no voice. We were talking once about what it takes to be a good supervisor, and she said in her usual humble way, “I won’t say I’m the best supervisor in the world because I know I’m not, but I do know how to say thank you, I was wrong, and I’m sorry.” I don’t know many people, even Christian people, who know how to say those words, never mind being humble about themselves and their own abilities. It’s not human nature to be that way – we like to puff ourselves up and look good. I say that knowing that I am like that myself in the basest part of my being. It’s only with the grace and power of God that I can do anything different.

My old friend who is not so old, is really a sweetheart. She wouldn’t like it if I told people that about her because they might take advantage of the goodness inside her. Luckily I never share people’s names here except for my own, so some people who know me may guess about people I write about, but no one can ever know for certain. I like it that way, it keeps people’s private lives private, while I let them know that what God sees in them is something beautiful. My friend is also tough and strong, and generous and kind and loving. She's funny and fun and smart, and I've been blessed to have her as my friend for many years for lots of reasons, including introducing me to great music. She’s seen me through some of the toughest times in my life, never judging, never telling me what I “should” do, never condescending even at times when I had made a big mess of everything. I tell her that she is a model of how God works in everything she does, that she acts in ways that Christians are supposed to. God tells us that He will write His words on our hearts and in our minds so that no one will have to teach us, and it’s true. We know what is right to do and what isn’t, but He always gives us the choice to choose which way we will go. My friend has made the choice to walk in the light of God even without claiming to know Him all of the years that I have known her. My prayer for her is that she could know Him, so she could know how much He loves her and approves of her and delights in her.

The next time you see someone who says they are this or they are that, ask God to help you look into their hearts. It’s amazing what you’ll see, and it might just give you a reason to be friends with someone who says they are very different from you. At the very least you’ll have peace with your neighbors, and you can enjoy a song you’ve heard your whole life in a new way. 2 Corinthians 7 says, "But we have this treasure in clay jars so it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us." That's an amazing image if you've ever worked with clay or used it in any way. Clay is heavy and dense and can't let light through, but with the power of God, it glows.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan