First Recorded Analogy Ever: Gourds

This is the first analogy I ever recorded in any of my journals. Sadly, I didn’t record the exact dates because for some reason I didn’t ever constantly do that way back when, but it was sometime during the fall of my junior year of high school, because I was making gourds for my sculpture class. It was definitely fun times. Many a time I wish I could go back to those times when I was in an art class, because I miss it a lot.

But anyways, I was just chillen in the back of the art room, working on my gourds and thinking about Jesus when suddenly a thought hit me. It was super exciting, one of my first complex analogies. Basically, how I had to make the gourds was that I had to take a decently sized lump of clay, form it into the gourd shape I wanted, let it get leather hard (hard enough to carve but not hard enough that it will break), cut it in half, carve out the insides, and then put it back together. Sounds pretty complex, right? It actually wasn’t that confusing, it was rather fun.

But anyways, I was sitting there carving out one of my gourds, and a thought suddenly hit me. The process of the creation of my gourds was just like the process of being reborn in Jesus Christ. Like I said before, I would form the gourd to the shape I wanted, let it get leather hard, cut it in half, carve out the insides, and then put it back together.

In the same way, God took us and formed us out of the dust. Then there was probably a period of time before we came to know him, which was the time in which we became leather hard, or the time in which we were being prepared to meet Jesus. For me, that time period was 15 years. And then, when we were ready, when the time was right, Jesus came into our lives and changed us forever, from the inside out. We opened up ourselves to him so that he could remove all the bad stuff from our bodies spiritually through forgiveness, and then he put us back together so that we could a live a life that glorified him.

And then there was this one gourd that I was making. It was supposed to be an acorn gourd or something weird like that. When I was making it, I had screwed up and carved the walls too thin. So, I got angry and threw it into the reclaiming bin (the bin where messed up or dried out clay is thrown and can be reclaimed by adding water), thinking that it was trash.

But, for some reason, I paused and looked back into the bin. I looked at my gourd for a few seconds, and then took it out and examined it for a time. It was then that I realized that I could totally still use it. As a matter of fact, it looked freaking sweet and it is my favorite out of the three gourds I made that fall.

This is similar to how Jesus can redeem absolutely anything. In the same way, even when we thought we weren’t redeemable, Jesus knew we were. We were so messed up, but Jesus took us up out of the dust and mud and redeemed us. And he can do the same for anyone, even the most messed up person you can think of. There is nothing Jesus can’t do. He turns the wretched story of a messed up person into an absolutely beautiful narrative of a person living for the glory of Jesus. I have heard a few of these stories, and they are often the most striking (not to say that all other testimonies are stupid—all testimonies are special and interesting).

So, I made, carved out, and put back together a gourd. Jesus made us, carved out the bad stuff, and put us back together to live a life that glorifies him. I made a really screwed up gourd that I thought was trash, but I reclaimed it and made it beautiful. God made us, and we screwed up majorly, but he reclaimed us and made us beautiful again. 

Our God is such an awesome God. He can redeem absolutely anything and everything, and He will redeem absolutely anything and everything. I know that God has beautifully redeemed my life, in ways that I cannot imagine. I am so thankful that He did, and I don’t know where I would be without Him. How has God beautifully redeemed your life?


:)