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Jeremiah 18:4-6, “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…’Can I not do the same with you as the potter does?’ declares the Lord. ‘Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand.’”
I love this verse and think about it often. I came across it in my Bible today as the song, The Potter’s Hand by Hillsongs played in the background. I turned the page, and in the scripture there, God again used a clay pot as an analogy for Jeremiah. Three clay pot references. So, I decided to think on this a bit and figure out what God was saying to me.
This verse says that the clay was “marred in his hands.” If God is the potter, and we are the clay, then that is very true. We are born from sinful flesh – we all start out as marred clay. We cannot shape ourselves, so we have two choices. We can sit in a lumpy pile and let our lives remain self-absorbed and sinful. Or, we can bring our sloppy, mess of a life to our loving Father, who makes all things new. "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17).
Once we’re transformed, we take on the shape He decided on; our lives look like His design rather than what we would have chosen for ourselves. Though we may have had a different mental picture for our lives, we should still trust Him fearlessly. We already know what it looks like when we make the decisions - and it's never as good as when we allow Him to gently guide us. That’s the hardest part of being a Christian – yielding my will to God’s and allowing Him to call the shots.
I should remember that a vessel shaped by a potter; it is not my job to tell Him what I should look like or what my role should be. That's the other thing - my purpose is not meaningless; I was created for something specific, just as a clay pot is created for a specific reason. Though it may look pretty sitting on the shelf, that was not its intended function.
The shape God gives our lives is uniquely suited for the role he has us play. A bowl is different from a pitcher which is different from a pot. I shouldn’t be discouraged if my life doesn’t look like someone else’s; if my shape is drastically different from those around me. That just means he has a drastically different plan for me.
That also means I have no right to question what my Father – the potter – fills his vessel with. How absurd would it be for a cup to come to the potter and insist on holding oil rather than tea? “I made you, you silly cup! Hold what I ask you to hold because you can’t see what I’m doing here. You can’t see the table I’m setting. Trust me, and I promise I’ll take care of you.” He’s proven time and again that He is good. He is powerful. He is loving, and He has plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me hope and a future.
“I’m captured by
Your holy presence
Set me apart, I know you’re drawing me to yourself
Make me more like You
Take me, and mold me
Use me, fill me
I give my life to the Potter’s Hands”
