Your hands have made and fashioned me. Give me understanding that I may learn Your commandments. Those who fear You shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in Your word. I know, O Lord, that Your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me. Let Your steadfast love comfort me according to Your promise to Your servant. Let Your mercy come to me, that I may live; for Your law is my delight. Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood. As for me, I will meditate on Your precepts. Let those who fear You turn to me, that they may know Your testimonies. May my heart be blameless in Your statutes that I may not be put to shame! (Verses 73-80)
The potter took the slippery wad of clay into her hands and plopped it onto the wheel. The early morning sun shone through the window of her garage studio. The kiln was already baking an earlier creation because the potter couldn't sleep for all the designs that burst upon her thoughts as she lay awake in her bed that night. With this lump of clay she wanted to create a vessel for her mother. A special creation. A ewer for the dining room table to hold the roses from the spring garden which always burst with hundreds of grandiflora beauties. As the wheel turned to the rhythm of the potter's foot and the water slicked the clay in her hands, the woman noticed something strange. Each time she would build the vessel upward, the clay would collapse back onto the platform of the wheel, as if refusing the form she had in mind. Less water. Added clay. The lovely pitcher took all morning. Finally, though, it was ready for the kiln. The master potter's idea from the night realized despite the clumsy, mutinous clay. Fired and set, the gift delivered into the hands of a delighted mother, it was soon all the more glorious for the multi-colored array of long-stemmed roses that graced it all that spring.
In the mind of the creator is a creation. Something new. Never done before. Only the potter knows what she will do with the lump of dirt in her hands. Once realized and fired, the purpose is set. All kinds of vessels. Earthen pots for many uses. God knows we aren't pots. But the picture for us should be clear. He made us. We should actually rejoice in the fact that there is thought and purpose behind each life God fashions. And, as this psalm reminds us, if God made us, it only stands to reason that if we want to understand our lives we need to ask Him to teach us. We come with instructions. And He has them in His hand. It's ridiculous to imagine a pot, fresh from the kiln, saying to the potter: "What the heck! Look at me! Why in the world did you make me into a vase, for crying out loud?" Even more insane to think of the vase walking out of the studio and going to the local pub to present itself as a stein to hold beer. Because that's what it wanted to be all along. A beer mug. Then the vase wonders why it's not happy in the bar.
It's a beautiful thing to see an earthen vessel moving in all that it was designed to be. The greatest glory for the lovely gift the potter gave to her mother is for it to be used to hold the bouquets for which it was created. We, like the pots, are designed for something. God thought about us before He fashioned our lives. We aren't a matter of happenstance. An afterthought in a world of chance. I was made to fit into a larger plan. And I was created in love. I've met lots of little pots who are in the wrong household. Frustrated and chipped because no one seems to understand how precious they are. Misuses them. Decorative urns stuffed with garbage. Crystal bowls used for morning cereal. And always feeling like that's all they are good for. I've had a few shards of my own pot fall to floor from the mishandling of what is sacred to God.
Our potter, though? Fixes broken vessels. Never hopeless. Always loved. Our purpose is ever our purpose. No plan B. That's what we are delivered from! Found in the bottom of the cupboard, languishing and lonely, His hand picks us up and refashions and repairs. It gives hope to the other vessels. "Come and look at what the Potter did!" I cry. "He took me up out of the bottom drawer, out of the shame of my hiding place, and repaired all my broken places! Now I live, new and shiny, in the house of a king! Come and let me tell you how He rescued this little jar of clay!"
"Woe to him who strives with Him Who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to Him Who forms it, 'What are You making?' or 'Your work has no handles'?...Ask me of things to come; will you command Me concerning my children and the work of my hands? I made the earth and created man on it. It was My hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host." Isaiah 45
The potter took the slippery wad of clay into her hands and plopped it onto the wheel. The early morning sun shone through the window of her garage studio. The kiln was already baking an earlier creation because the potter couldn't sleep for all the designs that burst upon her thoughts as she lay awake in her bed that night. With this lump of clay she wanted to create a vessel for her mother. A special creation. A ewer for the dining room table to hold the roses from the spring garden which always burst with hundreds of grandiflora beauties. As the wheel turned to the rhythm of the potter's foot and the water slicked the clay in her hands, the woman noticed something strange. Each time she would build the vessel upward, the clay would collapse back onto the platform of the wheel, as if refusing the form she had in mind. Less water. Added clay. The lovely pitcher took all morning. Finally, though, it was ready for the kiln. The master potter's idea from the night realized despite the clumsy, mutinous clay. Fired and set, the gift delivered into the hands of a delighted mother, it was soon all the more glorious for the multi-colored array of long-stemmed roses that graced it all that spring.
In the mind of the creator is a creation. Something new. Never done before. Only the potter knows what she will do with the lump of dirt in her hands. Once realized and fired, the purpose is set. All kinds of vessels. Earthen pots for many uses. God knows we aren't pots. But the picture for us should be clear. He made us. We should actually rejoice in the fact that there is thought and purpose behind each life God fashions. And, as this psalm reminds us, if God made us, it only stands to reason that if we want to understand our lives we need to ask Him to teach us. We come with instructions. And He has them in His hand. It's ridiculous to imagine a pot, fresh from the kiln, saying to the potter: "What the heck! Look at me! Why in the world did you make me into a vase, for crying out loud?" Even more insane to think of the vase walking out of the studio and going to the local pub to present itself as a stein to hold beer. Because that's what it wanted to be all along. A beer mug. Then the vase wonders why it's not happy in the bar.
It's a beautiful thing to see an earthen vessel moving in all that it was designed to be. The greatest glory for the lovely gift the potter gave to her mother is for it to be used to hold the bouquets for which it was created. We, like the pots, are designed for something. God thought about us before He fashioned our lives. We aren't a matter of happenstance. An afterthought in a world of chance. I was made to fit into a larger plan. And I was created in love. I've met lots of little pots who are in the wrong household. Frustrated and chipped because no one seems to understand how precious they are. Misuses them. Decorative urns stuffed with garbage. Crystal bowls used for morning cereal. And always feeling like that's all they are good for. I've had a few shards of my own pot fall to floor from the mishandling of what is sacred to God.
Our potter, though? Fixes broken vessels. Never hopeless. Always loved. Our purpose is ever our purpose. No plan B. That's what we are delivered from! Found in the bottom of the cupboard, languishing and lonely, His hand picks us up and refashions and repairs. It gives hope to the other vessels. "Come and look at what the Potter did!" I cry. "He took me up out of the bottom drawer, out of the shame of my hiding place, and repaired all my broken places! Now I live, new and shiny, in the house of a king! Come and let me tell you how He rescued this little jar of clay!"
"Woe to him who strives with Him Who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to Him Who forms it, 'What are You making?' or 'Your work has no handles'?...Ask me of things to come; will you command Me concerning my children and the work of my hands? I made the earth and created man on it. It was My hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host." Isaiah 45
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