How many of you are familiar with this story of the crack pot? You know the one where at the end of the day, the water bearer says to look at the flowers beside the road to see that it is the crack pot that waters the flowers each day. I have been hearing this story for about a few times this past few months and frankly speaking I'm getting a little bit scared that the true meaning behind this crack pot story is becoming watered down.
Now for those who really don't know the story...here goes. In a village far away, there lived a water bearer who goes to the river every day to collect water for the house. He usually brings with him two pots which he carries with a stick over his shoulder. One of the pot was perfect and beautiful and it always brings back a full load of water back into the house. However there is another pot which has a small crack on the bottom of the pot. As soon as it reaches the house, the pot only have 1/2 of the water left. This cracked pot was sad and one day the water bearer asked the pot why was it sad. The cracked pot said, that he feels that he is useless that he only brings half the water back not like the perfect pot. The water bearer answered, well tomorrow as you come back from the river, notice what you see along the way. The next day, as usual, the water bearer goes to the river to collect water. He reminded the pot to look at it's side of the road along the way home. The pot did what the water bearer said. He saw beautiful flowers that looks like the flowers that are on the table of it's master. When they reached home, the water bearer asked what the pot had saw. The pot answered about the flowers it saw. The water bearer then said that the flowers were watered by the water in the pot. Because of the crack, the water that flows will water the plant each day. The water bearer will then pick these flowers each day to decorate the house of the master.
There are actually two morales to this story:
1) This is the famous one, that God can use anyone to do His work including our weaknesses. He doesn't look at our strength only. So embrace the weakness.
2) Now this one, few ppl teach about it. God is teaching us to be perfect and teaching us not to always think of our crack side. Many people just learn to embrace their weaknesses and then forever saying sigh I have a weakness. And when they fall, they also said sigh because of my weakness. I think God wants to learn about our crack embrace it and also look at it and learn how to appreciate and also do something with it. Just like the water bearer he embraced the crack pot and did something with it. God wants us to help us seal our crackiness. But He doesn't do it alone. Some people think that only God can teach me. True God is the almighty and only He can teach us but God also uses everybody else to help teach us.
So the next time you hear this story again. Listen to it carefully again and learn that we should not just embrace our weaknesses, we should learn how to patch our crack pot.
