The Potter

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

My mother enrolled me in a Pre-K class at Logan School. It was the only school that offered the program that year. The teaching of this class was done by a married couple from a nearby town...Mr. & Mrs. Swain. At that time we had a school bus that ran from one end of our Main Street to the other that served as our city transportation. The Swains took a bus from their little town and then took our bus to the corner nearest the school. My mother walked me to the Main Street corner nearest our home to meet the bus where I would ride to the school with the Swains. I really loved Mr. & Mrs. Swain. What's more, I got to be one of the very first students in the classroom in the mornings because of being with them.

One particular morning as we arrived, Mrs. Swain let out a loud, "Oh my!" The clay we played with was kept in a big tin container with a lid on it but maybe the janitor in cleaning up the night before sat it on the heating unit (register, we called it) and the clay by morning looked like a container of hot, ugly soup. Clay back then was an ugly gray and usually got hard pretty quickly when exposed to air, but not that morning. It was a mess after being exposed to heat all night.

When we finally did have clay time, the Swains always stressed that we could make anything out of our piece of clay we wanted to. I liked to make baskets but some made snakes, guns, dolls, and even animals. We could do anything or make anything out of our ball of clay. Just handling it made us feel like we were in control even as little as we were.

On two different occasions in my life, I have watched a genuine potter at work. A good, experienced potter has a special touch. His touch extends to every part of the process, not just in molding a piece of clay into a certain object. He carefully selects the clay. There may be some lumps or stones in the clay but because the clay is just what he wants, he chooses to use it and work the flaws out of the clay as he works with it. He prepares his wheel and makes sure he has a more than an ample supply of water next to the wheel because that is needed in the shaping and molding process.

The potter kneads the clay until it is just the right consistency before placing it on the wheel. His feet stay on the pedals below the wheel table that keeps the wheel spinning at whatever speed he wants. It is at this moment, one sees the interaction between the potter and the clay. The potter bends almost lovingly over the piece of clay that is spinning on the wheel. His hands are wet and he ever so carefully shapes the piece of clay into whatever he has planned ahead of time for it to be. Artisan potters know from the beginning the plan they have for the clay. Every now and then, he feels a small lump. At that time, the potter may stop the wheel and carefully remove the lump or stone and then proceed to work the clay to his liking.

It may not take an experienced potter very long to view the final object before him that he has crafted but, is it what he had hoped to produce? Unfortunately, there are times when a piece of clay just has not worked to his liking. It hasn't yielded completely to the skilled hands of the potter. The clay doesn't yield for some reason and despite the potter's efforts to make something of it, the end result isn't acceptable. The potter will often take such a faulty product and throw it on a heap of broken pottery where other useless objects have been thrown.

Scripture compares us to clay and God to a Great Potter who takes us in hand and spends our lifetimes working with us. At first when young in our faith, we tend to be very pliable in the hands of the Potter. As life goes on, there are sometimes lumps and stones that may be found or even developed because of our sin natures that make us hard to work with. Unlike the lumps of clay I saw earthly potters working with, we as the clay in THE Potter's hands have some choices as we are on the wheel, being shaped and formed as He would have us be. However, there are times when we aren't very yielding in the hands of the Potter. We want to do our own thing, take on our own shape to be an object we want to be and not what our Father wants us to be.

We make choices everyday as to our yieldedness in the Potters hand. We choose our own attitudes, activities, and life' choices in general. At first the Potter will work with us through the Holy Spirit to rid us of those things that would hinder us in our walk of faith. When we choose to not yield to the Potter's hands, things might get a little tougher for us because He has no desire to throw us on a scrap heap. His desire is for us to be a vessel fit for His use, but those lumps have to go and their removal can cause certain degrees of pain.

Yielding to the Potter's hand is a choice but with God being our Maker and yes, Potter, how can we decide that He has no right to our lives. In Isaiah 29:16, we find:

Surely your turning of things upside down shall be

esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of

him that made it, He made me not? Or shall the thing

framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?

You see, there are those Christians who feel that God has no right to their lives. So are we to question the One who made us? Are we to sit back with the attitude that God has no understanding and doesn't know what He's doing? On the contrary. In this day of little accountability along with strong feelings of independence, we are just asking for a rough ride on the wheel if we take on those attitudes.

In Isaiah 45:9b, again we see the epitome of arrogance that is almost taunting in nature:

...Shall the clay say say to him that fashioneth it,

What makest thou? Or thy work, He hath no hands?

God is viewed as a do-nothing, know-nothing and not even equipt to function in our lives.\

We may not out and out say these things but we can think some of them. If we live lives in total disregard of what God wants to do with us, then we are all but ignoring the Great Potter as if He doesn't exist.

There is a wonderful old hymn that says:

Have Thine own way, Lord

Have Thine own way.

Thou art the potter,

I am the clay.

Mold me and make me

After Thy will

While I am waiting,

Yielded and still.

May this be our ongoing prayer as we seek to be used of Him knowing that being in the hands of the Potter is the greatest place in the world to be.