The Potter and the Clay

The Potter and the Clay: A Personal Reflection

Jeremiah 18:1-6 says:

”This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 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.5 Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?”

This week I have spent time feeling like that pot that just hasn’t turned out quite the way it was supposed to. God gives us free will, but I was wondering if I had used mine correctly to become that which God intended me for, in the end feeling like I really may have messed up somewhere. In reading Jeremiah this morning, I was reminded that God can and will do anything with what we give him, when we give it, if we are willing and ready to be molded like clay. Like that pot, the potter will mold us in each stage of our lives, using all that we have traveled through so far, to move us forward, creating an artful masterpiece.

As amazing as a crafted pot is, though, they can also become broken or cracked. I am no stranger to feeling fractured or pulled in multiple directions, nor is anyone else living a human existence. We all walk through busy life with myriad distractions and complications daily. This week was no different for me. Come Friday morning I said to God, “I think I broke, I’m broken.” I was tired, worn out, and talked out. Coherent thoughts no longer seemed to exist in my brain. After a weekend of rest and family time, I worshiped with a full heart of thankfulness this morning, but soon realized that the week was coming and I would not have room for reflection and prayer as often as I would like. I simply asked God to be present in my week, filling in all the spaces into which he could breathe his spirit. Breathe in calm, breathe in strength, keep me together when I feel like I might fracture, make me whole in the way only He can.  

I pray as we enter this week, that we might rise with the knowledge we are loved and held by a God who sees us. That we walk through the days feeling whole, not fractured, by all that life will throw at us, and that we fall to rest at night confident that He is crafting a masterpiece in us even while we walk through what seem like ordinary days. 

He is the master of using ordinary people to do extraordinary things, after all.