The Pot and the Potter!

I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

Jeremiah 18:3-4

Clay pots can be pretty and useful. If they are handmade, then the potter himself molds and shapes the soft clay into the perfect pot. Even if the potter is very experienced in working with clay it may take quite some time until the pot is just the way he wants it.

Often in church, when I was a child we would sing "Thou art the potter and I am the clay." We would ask God to mold and make us after His will.

I really liked the picture of me being a piece of clay on the potter's wheel while God himself shapes me into the likeness of Jesus Christ. I can just see His hands all over me as He manipulates my very being into the image of Jesus!

I have a friend who was a great piece of clay. God worked with my friend and shaped and squeezed him into just the right shape. I don't know the details of how the Potter shaped him but I really liked what I saw.

Then without warning the Potter put my friend in the fire. He was diagnosed with cancer, and it was serious. He not only lost his hair he also lost his job. But he did not lose the shape the Potter had chosen for his life. The fiery furnace did not destroy my friend. Quite the opposite, the furnace hardened him into a very usable vessel for the Lord.

For me, I love being the lump of clay on the Potter’s wheel as he spins me around and with His fingers shapes my life. I love a little less the part when He decides that the shape is not coming exactly as He planned and He throws me onto the wheel to start over. But the part I never look forward to is the fiery furnace! The furnace is not fun. But the furnace is the very thing that makes me useful to God!

So if you find yourself in the middle of the fire as a follower of Jesus, think of the Potter and recognize that the making of the pot is almost complete!