The Potter and the Clay

“But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay,
and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”

Isaiah 64:8

Everything is made for a specific purpose. A plate, a bowl, a cup – each were created for a certain use. In the same way each one of those objects were created for a use, a person is also created for a special purpose. As with the three objects mentioned above, there was a mastermind behind each one. The mastermind had a vision for the object and an ultimate goal and use for it. In our lives as Christians, there is a mastermind creating us into His vision and purpose for our lives. Our lives can be viewed as clay in the hands of the Lord – our Potter.

In order to create a vessel there first must be a vision – a goal, a purpose. The vision is there before sculpting process even begins. Jeremiah 1:5 says “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Before He even began our lives, God, as the Potter, had a purpose and vision for each of us as a vessel. However, the vessel doesn’t go from vision to reality over night; it requires patience and several crucial steps. These steps are performed by the Potter as He sculpts and has us, the vessel – the clay – in His hands.

As clay in the Potter’s hands, He is able to sculpt us with each turning of the wheel. The process of sculpting and smoothing removes cracks and flaws from the clay of our being. Through this ongoing process, the things in our lives that hinder our walk with Him are brought to the surface by His constant guiding in our lives. By surfacing the hindrances in the clay – all the stones, the air bubbles, the cracks – He is able to remove them. Thus, allowing the clay to flow freely through the Potter’s fingers and hands.  When we are moving freely in His hands, He is able to begin shaping us into His vision. 2 Timothy 2:21 says “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.” When we are in the Potter’s hands, we feel His pressures, feel the molding of His fingers, we can relax and trust Him, for we know that this Potter has suffered with us and knows how we feel, but is determined to make us into a vessel “meet for the master’s use”.

In order for the Potter to shape us we have to be centered on His wheel.  Being centered on His wheel is being centered in His will. To be centered in His will we have to be content with what He is doing and trust in the moving of His hand in our life. Romans 9:20-21 says, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” When we are content with what we have, with the circumstances in our lives, we are appreciative and thankful for what God has brought into our life and how He is shaping us – whether it is good or bad in our eyes. We are thankful for how He is working and the circumstances, because we are not focused on what we don’t have and what we aren’t experiencing, but we are trusting God that in all things He is giving us, shaping us, and moving us into all that we need and all that He wants and has for us. Through this we see more clearly His reasons for shaping us. “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Philippians 4:11-13

 Aside from being centered on the Potter’s wheel, the clay must also stay moist. It is impossible to mold a piece of parched clay. Isaiah 35:7 says “And the parched ground shall become a pool…” Parched means “to become dry from thirst or lack of water”. When we lack God’s word in our daily lives, we become less attentive to His will for us, the probing of the Holy Spirit, and His working in our lives through others. These things can be compared to the water – the pool - that the Potter uses to bring the clay to the right consistency to enable Him to shape and form it under His loving touch. For Him to continue to mold us we must stay saturated.

When we are finally molded into the shape He wants us to be, we have to go into the fiery kiln. Clay can withstand a wide variety of temperatures varying from extremely hot to extremely cold, just as we can survive this process. While in the kiln, God will allow temptations and trials to come our way to test our faith and teach us things to prepare us for the purpose He has been creating us for. During this time is when so many of us give up and faint. But 2 Corinthians 4:16-17 says, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” It is only when we are put through the fire that we truly learn to trust in Him to meet our every need and remove us from the kiln at His timing - when He believes we are ready to face the reality of His vision for us. God is standing there watching over us with His eyes on the thermostat and His hand on the dial. He will never let us burn or give us more then we can handle. During this time, He starts to make us beautiful in His image.

When the vessel is glazed and put through the fiery kiln it comes out shining and glazed in the understanding and acceptance of His will and vision for our life. It is then that it reflects a beauty and grandeur that could have only come through the careful molding and then the firing that took place. Its shine and glaze is so shiny from the fire that when the Potter looks into it, it reflects His image. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18.

Beneth Jones once said, “The stark outlines of my sin-marred humanity are always painfully evident. But thankfully, I don’t have to be, and indeed cannot be, beautiful in myself. It is only as the light of Jesus Christ adorns my life that beauty appears. May He who is light, He who is the almighty lovely one, display more of Himself and hide more of me each day.” Every bit of the processes of forming us into His vision helps us become beautiful on the inside which shines through, making us beautiful on the outside. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He hath made everything beautiful in his time.”

Sometimes the vessel must be broken in order for that beauty – that light – to shine through. In the book of Judges when Gideon was preparing to face the Midianites, God laid on Gideon’s heart a special battle plan. Gideon divided his men into three different companies and he gave each man a trumpet and an empty pitcher that contained a lamp inside. When the time came in battle, under the instruction of Gideon, the men broke the pitchers that were in their hands so that the light could be revealed. (Judges 7:7-22). Pitchers – clay vessels – with lamps inside! Sometimes the Potter must break the vessel in order to let the inner light shine through. Christians are mere vessels of clay designed to house a precious light and treasure.  That light can only be seen or shined when our vessel is, at times, broken. 2 Corinthians 4:3-7 elaborates on the light in us, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servant’s for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

The Potter knew every struggle, every test – all the stones, cracks, and air bubbles that had to be worked out of our clay being before He began turning us on His wheel in this life. He knew what the end result would be even before we made the transformation from slab of clay into the beautiful vessel that He had envisioned from the beginning. Sometimes in our resisting ways, He was forced to bring us back to the Potter’s wheel. But through His grace, God allowed the clay of our humanity to cooperate with the Potter. Our cooperation with our Maker allows Him to make beautiful vessels out of our previously flawed lives. It is then that we see the His vision become a reality and He is able to not only display but use His work of art for His glory and ultimate purpose, all In the Light of His Glory.