Are You Ready For The Potter's Hands?

In The Potter’s Hands

Have you ever been doing a simple task or action in your everyday life, when God chooses to reveal something special to you? At any other time it would hold no special significance to you, but then God makes you look at it in a whole new way, to reveal His truth. When Jeremiah obeyed the Lord in Jeremiah 18, he learned God’s truth by watching a potter form a clay vessel. We can learn a lot more from the potter too. Forming the vessel is just the beginning as God reveals the plan He has designed for our lives.

One morning, as I was looking on the computer for an inspirational E-card, to send my faith partner, I was also thinking about ideas for a pottery project for my high school art students. When I skimmed through the E-cards, I came across a card that had been inspired by one of Max Lucado’s books. The picture on the front of the card was that of a potter’s hands busy at work forming clay on a potter’s wheel. The quote on the E-card was taken from Max Lucado’s book, Cure for the Common Life; “God made you. You’re as irreplaceable as the plan God designed for your life, and today I hope He reveals a glimpse of the many blessings He has in store for you.”

As I read the message inspired by Max Lucado and looked at the picture on the card, I felt God opening my heart and mind. I remembered the words of Isaiah 64:8, “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Like the potter, God takes our formless shape and molds us into the vessel HE wants us to be, a vessel that will best serve Him. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4: 7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” God creates our earthen vessels so that they can be filled with the treasures that come from our faith in Him. However, like clay some vessels are formed easier than others.

There are days when clay seems to do everything the potter wants it to, easily conforming to the potter’s touch. Still, there are other days when clay seems to resist every attempt the potter makes to form it into the vessel it was intended to be. The potter must break the vessel down and start again. In Jeremiah 18:2 the Lord said, “Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message.” The Lord wanted Jeremiah to watch the potter at work so that He could speak though the potter’s hands. We know that Jeremiah was obedient to the Lord by reading next where Jeremiah said, “So 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.” Have you ever felt the Lord directing you to do something?

Just like the clay, we must be at the right stage with our faith to take on the form that God intends for us. If we are too lazy or don’t put our trust in God, then like clay that is too wet, we can’t hold the form God wishes to give us. If we are too selfish, stubborn, or too set in our ways, refusing to completely turn over control to God, then like clay that is too dry, we crack and fall apart not bending in the Master’s hands. It’s God’s design that forms the clay not ours. The Bible tells us that during this process, it’s not our place to question our form, or to try and help the potter design what we want our form to be. In Isaiah 45:9 it says, “'Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?' Does your work say, 'He has no hands?'" Our place in this process is to be obedient to God, committing ourselves by faith to whatever form God has chosen for us.

The Lord also teaches us in Jeremiah 18 how much love and patience God shows us? He does not give up on us. Even if our vessel is marred the first time he tries to form it, He does not throw the clay aside and quit. What a blessed assurance that even if God has to return us to a shapeless lump of clay, He will continue to work with us until He can form us into vessels that are pleasing to Him.

There is one way that we are very different from the clay. We have free will to accept or reject God’s will for our lives. Only when our hearts are ready to turn everything over to God, can He make us into the beautiful works of art He designed for us. Vessels ready to be filled with His blessings. Once we take on our new shapes we are still not complete in God’s eyes. If you have heard the potter’s story told before, this is where the story probably stopped. However, if you were a potter, you would know that for the whole potter’s story to be told, forming the vessel is only the beginning.

Our vessels for God are not complete yet. Just like clay we must go through a metamorphosis. Prior to the first firing of clay (when clay is heated to extremely hot temperatures in a kiln), if a clay vessel gets wet again after it has been set out to dry, it looses its form and returns to a shapeless lump of clay. It is only by firing clay in extreme heat that the pottery completes the metamorphosis. Our vessels grow stronger, completing their metamorphosis when we face trials with true faith and trust in God. If our faith is weak, with faltering thoughts and actions that try to place limits on God’s power, we too can loose our form for who we are as Christians. We must constantly remind ourselves that God is the potter, and we are just the clay. The clay can’t make itself into a vessel and we shouldn’t try to go through trials without God. God knows us because he made us. He won’t put us through trials until we are ready, just as a knowledgeable potter doesn’t fire a clay vessel as soon as he is done forming it.

After clay is formed, it must take time to dry and harden before it can be fired. Dried too quickly and it can crack. Fired too soon and it can explode in the kiln. The time we spend going through trials is the hardest time to keep our faith and trust strong. We often get impatient, not understanding God’s plan for us. The Bible tells us to rejoice as we are going through trials. It says in James 1:2-4, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” When we take things into our own hands, rushing through God’s plans instead of waiting on Him, we must face the consequences. Things in our life crack or explode just like clay dried or fired too soon. We look at the pieces we wonder why?

God misses nothing as he scrutinizes our lives. We can’t hide anything from Him. When something is not right in our relationship with God, it is like an air bubble that gets trapped in the clay vessel as it is formed. You may not see it as the vessel is formed and as it dries preparing to be fired, just as we sometimes don’t realize that there are areas in our lives that aren’t right with God. It is only when the clay vessel faces the extreme heat that the air tramped inside the clay expands. Finally it causes the vessel to crack or explode in the kiln as the air breaks free. Our lives will continue to crack or explode too, if we do not deal with the areas in our lives that aren’t right with God.

Praise God for his love and forgiveness, because all is not lost. If we turn to God with repentance and prayer He forgives us and forms us again. He will form us again and again until we have learned our lesson. God’s design is a finished vessel that in the end will honor and please Him. It‘s a shame that we as Christians don’t realize that this process would be much quicker and less painful if we would only turn it all over to God completely in the first place. How many of us have had to be formed over and over again in our lives because we think we know more than the potter?

Many Christians feel that once they have been through the fire the first time then they are complete. They fail to see that they are applying limits to God’s plan. If the potter stops after the first firing, the pottery will retain its shape. It is functional, but it lacks the beauty and completeness that it could be. For the vessel to be complete with all its many colors and beauty it must be glazed and fired again. Glaze can be very confusing, just as there are times we don’t understand where God is leading us. Glaze looks very different in color before it is fired. Beautiful shiny blue, red, and green glazes can look chalky white, dull, or pasty pink like Pepto-Bismol before they are fired. Someone looking at a vessel that has been glazed, waiting to be fired might say, “How can this vessel possibly look the way you are telling me it is going to look? It looks nothing like that!” How many of us try to second guess God?

God reveals His plan for us in His time, and in His own way. We must trust in the direction he is leading us, knowing that no matter what things look like now, in the end we will shine with His glory, through the blessings that He gives us, for being obedient and trusting in Him. James 1:12 says, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

Did you notice that the vessel must go through extreme heat again after it is glazed, in order for the glaze to change into its beautiful final form? I had to stop and ask myself when I thought about this, “Have I limited myself as a Christian because I choose to settle only to be functional?” I had to honestly say yes there are times in my life that this has been true. Why? Well, there were a number of reasons that came to mind. I was to busy with other things that took me away from my walk with God. I was afraid to go through the fiery trials that it would take to get to where God wanted me to be. I was being self-centered in my life wanting to plan my own directions in my own time. I either did not like or misunderstood the direction that God was taking me, so I stubbornly chose not to follow. The clay was trying to be the potter again. Wow, what a revelation!

As an art teacher, I have to reassure my students that if they paint the glaze I give them on their pottery it will look the way they want it to look, after it is fired again. This is where Christian fellowship can be so important. As others go through their fiery trials, feeling discouraged and weak, it is our responsibility as Christians to reassure them and give them strength through God’s truth and through our prayers. Romans 5:1-5 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” It is only when we allow God to “glaze and fire” us with His will, in His time, and through His direction, that we finally become the beautiful work of art He always intended us to be.

As God forms you today, what kind of clay will you be for him? Can you put your trust in God’s will and let him guide you with His loving hands? I hope and pray that as you trust in God and honor His will, that He reveals a glimpse of the beautiful vessel He has designed for you. May you see yourself through the eyes of the potter. Are you ready for the potter?

FaithfulToOne © 2006

The Power of Creation

Worthwhile things are built

Humble like simple clay

By the Craftsman's hand

Formed and shaped

Piece by piece

Bit by bit

With time

Details emerge

Lines are engraved

With loving hands

The pieces are joined

According to His plan

Designs skillfully decorate

This earthenware construction

An understanding takes form

Functional and yet a work of art

Reinforced through constant prayer

Organized with the Artist's wisdom

With creativity made unique

Metamorphosis complete

With care by the Creator

FaithfulToOne © 2001