Formation

We had the distinct privilege of hosting another of God's many living legends - Dr. M.C. Mathew.
.
The night he spent with us was suffused with a grace and calm that seeps out of the good doctor.
.

The next day at the EMFI Conference he spoke in his wonderfully measured and calming way - about life and its beauty.
.
The word that struck me was formation.
.
Before you were born I knew you - I formed you in your mother's womb.
.
God speaks of forming us - mirroring the initial work of God's hands in forming man out of dust - and breathing his spirit into them. Humanity became living beings - as we do in the secret places.
.
Formation also speaks of process - of development. We change in that mysterious apparently self-promoted manner - which observers have the arrogance of calling 'undirected'. How quickly we assume we know everything based on the ability to detect certain patterns. Just because I can describe 1 zygote become 2 cells, and then 4 etc. hardly qualifies me from feeling that I know it all.
.
Formation speaks of time and change - and growing into structures of meaning. How beautiful to think of our very being being formed. The image of the rough but purposive hands of the potter come to mind - shaping the spinning lump of clay into the swirling circle of a vessel-to-be. We think of the sculptor chipping away at the block to unlock the beauty she sees inside the rock.
.
Formation hints at the process of change that we go as we begin to understand God. Our spiritual formation sees a quickening by the Spirit as we start to taste truth and allow our lives to be shaped by Him.
.
Formation speaks of a Former.
.

---------------

.

Thank you Dr. Mathew for giving us a glimpse of the Lord.