Why We Should Not Strive With Our Maker

Daily Family Devotions – Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth!

Isaiah 45:9 (NKJV)

Many celebrities and ordinary people go through plastic surgery to remove, enlarge or decrease some body parts. Others undergo sex change. Countless individuals bleach their skins to become lighter or darker.

Behind these attempts to change the biological and physical composition of the body is an acute form of inferiority complex. The need to fit in socially motivates people to take these drastic, often unhealthy, actions.

While conformity is not necessarily wrong, what does it say about us as God’s creation? God created us in His own image on the last day of creation (Genesis 1:27). We were the climax of God’s work – the masterpiece.

The Maker Created Us a Little Lower than the Angels

Further, in the hierarchy of God’s creation, we are second after angels.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. (Psalms 8:3-5).

The Psalmist further addresses God the Creator in glowing terms when he says, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.” (Psalms 139:14).

Do Not Strive With Your Maker

With that background, you can understand Isaiah’s admonition:

Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’? (Isaiah 45:9).

Just as a pot cannot instruct the potter on how it should be moulded, so can a human being not even imagine faulting God’s work and plans. “What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator.” (NLT).

Arguing with Our Maker’s Plans

Beyond biological and physical issues, we argue with God when we try to change His plans for others and ourselves. When we deliberately walk in the opposite direction from what God had directed us to do, sorrow awaits us.

When we place roadblocks on the paths of other people to prevent them from succeeding, woe unto us because we are attempting to thwart God’s plans. We cannot strive with God and succeed in what we plan to do.

The Maker’s Perfect Plans for Us

We may not understand the reasons behind everything happening in our lives, especially those things and situations we find undesirable. However, instead of arguing with God, let us believe and claim the following promises:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6).

My Maker, teach me not to strive with You. I accept Your purpose and plans for my life unconditionally.