Choosing Our Mold

Several years ago, our family enjoyed creating candy from molds. With the right mold, any shape was possible. Turtles were our favorite. We never discussed empty calories or dental cavities. Instead, while choosing our mold, we focused on our candy’s appearance and flavor.

Choosing Our Mold for Meals

A steady diet of those attractive sugar lumps, void of genuine sustenance, would have left us weak and unproductive. Although their creative shapes tickled our taste buds and temporarily satisfied hunger, they contributed little toward successful growth and development.

To compensate for the lack of nutrients, we occasionally sprinkled our concoctions with nuts or fruit. They enhanced the dessert’s flavor and nutrition, but the candy’s basic nature remained unchanged.

Choosing Our Mold for Life

How often do we mold our lives to fit the world’s expectations? When greeted with “How are you?” we smile and respond, “Just fine. How are you?” Regardless of what’s going on in our world, we try to present an appealing outside appearance. We keep our guard up, often joking and laughing even when we’re an unstable, quivering mass of slush inside. We cover flaws with makeup, surgery, and stylish fads. We buy items we don’t need with money we don’t have. People around us may swallow our image and message. Yet, with our focus on external appearance and appeal, we reserve little energy for spiritual or emotional growth.

Occasional sprinkles of positive attributes fail to shape us into healthy people. Rather, we require new molds and an all-knowing, all-loving Creator to transform us, to fill us with that which holds genuine, eternal value.

Finding the Right Mold

When we release our lives to God we:

• Trade frantic activity for God-directed purpose.
• Replace a consumer mindset with a grateful and giving heart.
• Focus on building relationships rather than stroking our egos.
• See the world’s problems in the light of God’s promises.
• Offer hope where doubt has reigned.
• Reflect God’s love when challenged by hate and fear.
• Learn from the past, look forward to the future, and live in the present.
• Grow into the strong, productive people God created us to be.

Choosing the Right Mold

Will we settle for the artificial, temporarily satisfying but empty offerings of the world? Or will we hunger instead for a life molded by God’s perfect plan? Worthless scraps or a feast with our Father? We choose.

“O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand” (Isaiah 64:8 NLT).

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