DEVOTIONAL

The Potter's Hand

"The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it…"

Jeremiah 18:1-4

When I was in Elementary School we were invited to sign up for a variety of after school activities, and when the choice was presented to me, I usually made the same one: pottery. 

I obviously had enough pleasant memories at the potter's wheel to keep me coming back. But I do also remember the frustration that pushed me to the brink of tears, when the clay was too wet, or too dry, or my unpracticed hands could not quite make the right shape. I remembered how time, after time, after time, after time, I would press my half-formed creation back into a shapeless ball and start again. I remembered the lids that didn’t quite fit anymore once the clay was fired. I remember needing help from the teacher. I remember nothing turning out quite as I had hoped. 

That’s what happens in this familiar image from Jeremiah. The clay is not taking the right shape, and so it is reworked. It is a good reminder to us that all change, all growth, all new creation is painful, and involves loss. 

What in your life feels like it is getting smooshed back into a lump on the wheel? Where can you feel the hands of God tracing a new shape in your life? Are you facing hardening fires? Are things just spinning around and around? Each of these are the types of moments in which we are reworked and remade into the vessel that God needs to carry goodness, light, and peace into this world. 

Perhaps as a prayer this week, you could use the beautiful words of this hymn: 

Prayer: “Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me. Melt me. Mold me. Fill me. Use me. Amen”

More Devotionals

Let there be Light

By: Todd Rider

"For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ."

2 Corinthians 4:6

Turn Around

By: Rev. Ron Kurtz

"See what great love God has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!"

1 John 3:1

Night Sail to Rockland

By: Mark Patrick

"See what great love God has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!"

1 John 3:1

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