A Lesson From The Potter

It is said that heard information is retained up to 50%, but if you also see a demonstration of what you are being taught about, you will make the most of it. Hearing and seeing together will ensure a 90% information recall.

We had this children’s club at school where we used to make all kinds of models using clay. Our teacher taught us and demonstrated how first of all, the clay must be prepared for making the pot or plate or whatever you were up to. It has to have the proper evenness, also when laid on the wheel, you need water close by to constantly shape it the way you want, without it adhering to your fingers. It surely takes some practice and some dirty pairs of clothes until you can say you know how to make a pot on the wheel, yet the experience can teach you a very precious life lesson.

God’s prophets had practical lessons like this and in their writings Isaiah and also Jeremiah have used this example with the potter.

"You turn things upside down! Should the potter be thought to be like clay; that the thing made should say about him who made it, "He didn't make me;" or the thing formed say of him who formed it, "He has no understanding?" Isaiah 29:16

"Cursed is he who has an argument with his Maker, the pot which has an argument with the Potter! Will the wet earth say to him who is working with it, What are you doing, that your work has nothing by which it may be gripped?" Isaiah 45:9

I think the power of a demonstrated lesson is one of the reasons why God told Jeremiah, one of His prophets the following:

"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." So I went down to the potter's house, and 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.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it." Jeremiah 18: 1-10

Clay in the Potter’s hand, aren’t we all?

Yes we are, but our Potter, God the Father is a good One. He is not human, He is not made of clay as we are (with all our limitations) but He is the very source of all the good: the Source of Love, Life and all there is to be added to that in all variety and beauty.

He is not like a human potter. All what God does, He does with a reason, a good reason, good for us too! To trust our Potter, we need to understand that He truly loves us, unconditionally, we need to believe that He is much wiser –infinitely wiser than we’ll ever be – and that He has all the power, therefore He can do Everything.

That’s why, when you feel God enlarging your vessel or reshaping parts of it, do not be troubled, He knows what He is doing and the Potter is working for your ultimate benefit as well!

Your Potter has pierced hands…our sins and rebellion against Him have done that to Him, but in His great love and mercy for us, His creation, He paid the price of reconciliation. Yes, Jesus Christ died so that you and I may have peace with God, The Potter, again, as Adam used to have.

What would life be without the Love and Redemption offered by our Potter? We’d all break…but thank God for His Son Jesus Christ who paid for our reconciliation!

You know, The Potter can remold, restore and renew your pot…give Him the broken pieces if that’s all you have left. He knows how to do the rest! Be blessed!