by Pat Nordman

We are clay and dust, not very durable materials. Job in his agony lamented to God, "Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again?" Job 10:9. We are frail, but God does not condemn us. On such days it helps us to remember that "as [our] days, so shall [our] strength be" (Deuteronomy 33:25b).

There is another instruction in these verses and that is to grant to others the generous allowance that God grants to us and to have as much patience with the frailties of others as we have of our own limitations. We are all dust and prejudices and heredities that God knows and evaluates in both the present and final accounting. How can we judge another's formation when we must ask God daily for mercy for our own failures?

We are also "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). Who but our Creator could house within dust and clay such delicate organs as the brain and ears and eyes, or envision the uses of hands and feet, arms and legs? The study of the cell alone convinces us of the astonishing Creator and His act of creation.

It is the spiritual operation of the mind that separates man from animal and makes us God's treasure. We need to remember too, that the mind is helped or hindered by the condition of the housing for it is with the body that we honor God: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. . .? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19,20). From this, then, we realize that we are morally obligated to take very good care of our dust and clay..