In My Potter’s Hands!

I love my little pottery collection. It’s not much, but I think it is beautiful. We’ve gotten pieces over the years for our anniversary, or a birthday, or because there was a sale!

It takes a craftsman to make pottery. It takes a creator. (How do people believe in evolution, when a simple object lesson of a piece of pottery speaks so plainly? The vase simply does not happen. It is made. Molded. Held in the hands of the maker. And formed. Until it’s perfect. But I digress!)

In the New Testament, the Son of God taught in parables, object lessons, which I love! In the Old Testament, you still find object lessons, and the Potter’s House is one of my favorites! (Jeremiah 18)

“This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: go down to the potter’s house and there I will give you my message.”

Road trip! I think it’s so interesting the Lord wanted Jeremiah to see the potter at his wheel. To experience it. To understand it. The Lord said go, and Jeremiah hit the road!

“So I went down to the potter’s house. I saw him working at the wheel. 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.”

“Marred in his hands.” What a great phrase!

The pot was messed up. Cracked. Crooked. Ugly. Marred. But it was still in the potter’s hands. And so he made it again. He started over. The potter was not satisfied with a broken or chipped piece. He desired perfection in his work.

And so it is with our Potter.

“Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said,  ‘Can I not do with you, Israel, as the potter does?’ declares the Lord. ‘Like clay in the hands of the potter, so are you in my hand.'”

It’s good to know I am in His hands. I’m glad I’m not in the kiln. Or at the Potsherds Gate. Smashed into…potsherds! (I don’t even like that word!)

The last part of Jeremiah’s lesson at the Potter’s House is a warning of judgment. A plea from the Potter himself to turn away from evil ways. To turn away from our own plans and stubbornness and evil hearts.

It is a warning for today.

I want to stay in my Potter’s hands. Even when I’ve messed it all up. I want to be remade by Him over and over again.

What a sad, sad warning in verse 17,  to those who do it their way.  “I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their disaster.”

Man! I want to see His face! Don’t you?

My Potter is my Creator
He formed me from from the clay
My Potter is my Sustainer
His hands are where I stay.

My Potter is my Savior
Who makes me new again
My Potter is my Deliverer
Who’ll take me home with him.

And then I’ll see the Potter’s face
His hands of grace will tell
The story of the Potter’s House
That I have loved so well.

By then I’ll be a perfect pot
No blemish, chip, or stain
The Potter’s perfect masterpiece
Oh praise the Potter’s name!