In the hands of the potter...

I went and had the opportunity to watch a man shape and create pottery. He sat behind his spinning wheel, with the clay spinning round and round, and his hand the only instrument in shaping and creating his vessel of choice. He made it seem easy as he gently added pressure and took away pressure in creating just the right shape, thickness, and functionality to this piece of pottery. He took out a measuring device to make sure that the thickness of the pot was just right, but after so many years of creating these vessels, he knew by sight what was right. It seemed to take no time at all to see this pot take shape, and to see it from start to finish beginning as a simple lump of clay and ending as a piece ready to be of function.

This of course brought to mind the scriptures where God is the potter and we are the clay. Such a simple analogy but yet deep in its application and thought provoking lessons.

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.

Romans 9:20-21
But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

Jeremiah 18:5-6
Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as the potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.”

Clay is an inadament object, it does not have free-will, and it does not have emotions or physical abilities to move on its own. It’s fun to watch the potter at work because he has complete control of the clay. It is the potter’s own will and his own physical ability to shape the clay and the clay is formed by his complete control.

We are the clay but we have free-will, we have the ability to wiggle, to move, to resist the potter’s shaping. God often has us on the wheel, He has his hands on us, shaping us, forming us, creating us to be something of beauty and of use. We always want to move, always want to get off of His wheel, trying to avoid His hands. Our movements create weakness within the clay, His perfect shaping is made weak not by his own hands but by our desire to move away from his shaping. Like any good potter, he then has to start over because the integrity of the entire vessel is compromised by weakness in one area of the vessel.

How many times do we disrupt the beauty of the potter, the awe of His creativity by compromising His work and by making him begin anew in breaking us down, re-forming us and then re-shaping us. How patient is he that he does not just throw us aside and begin working on a new lump of clay, one that is more cooperative and willing to be shaped and formed. It is my own weakness that often creates the delays in life that I see as struggles but it is God’s patience and creativity that continually re-shapes me, strengthens me, and works within me to begin again and again stronger than the time before.