Have you
ever tried Pottery Classes ? Do you remember the feel of the hard clay, how it became slippery as you moistened it,
and softened up as you pummelled and squeezed it, before trying to make it into
shapes? Were you skilled enough to make recognizable objects – a figure maybe,
a bowl, or a plate? Or did you try one form after another as none of your
attempts seemed quite right? Even a
potter’s wheel wouldn’t have helped to make anything recognizable, let alone
beautiful, in my clumsy hands! The Teacher made it seem so easy as he
demonstrated . . . But that remarkable
Potter knew exactly what he wished to create, and produced it in the Twinkling
of an Eye. What an Artist!
Could
you ever imagine yourself as that insignificant lump of clay? Can you think of
yourself as that formless blob of cells, as during those first days in your
mother’s womb? Can you see in your
mind’s eye that our Artist God may have seen our unremarkable beginning, and
used his loving fingers to mould us into something special, even
extraordinary? Do you want to be
moulded? I’m not sure that I want to be
changed- I like ‘doing my own thing’ too much . . .just like the people of Jerusalem. I’m a
Control Freak. I don’t want to be ‘manipulated’, even by God. Or do I? Wouldn’t I rather allow myself to be
affected by the Fingers of his Love, and become more like his intended design?
But we
have been warned, says Jeremiah! And the
Good Potter also wants to be our Good Shepherd ( John 10, verses 3 and 4 ). We
need His help as we seek Him. As we
recognize his voice, may we follow Him, and then be happy to allow ourselves to
be moulded by Him, in his Image.
A potter
By Berg, Else, 1877-1942. From Art in
the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library,
Nashville,
TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56317 [retrieved
February 28, 2019]. Original source:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Else_Berg_A_potter.jpg.
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