The Hands of the Potter

We live in a world that has gone off the rails, not just spinning faster and faster, but seemingly spinning out of control.  

Think back with me to when you were a kid. Yes, I know. For some of us, that was a long time ago. Even before back in the day. You and your friends rode your banana seat bikes to the school yard. The group’s favorite piece of playground equipment was the merry-go-round. Everyone jumped on and invariably the big kid always yelled “faster!”

Soon it was spinning faster and faster and the centrifugal force was trying to throw you off, but you hung on to the handles ever so tightly. Everything around you became blurry. The coins that you had planned to use to buy an ice cream cone from the apothecary flew out of your pocket and landed somewhere on the ground. When the merry-go-round finally came to a stop you were dizzy, disoriented, and maybe even a little sick in your stomach. But soon you were back on that merry-go-round, once again “going faster!”

Today, do you feel like you are on that merry-go-round, spinning faster and faster, with everything flying out of your pockets, just hoping that when things stop spinning you are not dizzy, disoriented, and sick in your stomach? You collapse in bed, exhausted and worn out, only to find yourself once again back on that dizzying ride tomorrow. Sound familiar?  

Now contrast that out-of-control image with one of a cool-calm-and collected studio potter using a pottery wheel to make something beautiful out of clay, the finished product called a vessel. The potter takes a glob of clay, puts it on the wheel, then uses his or her foot to methodically and carefully spin the wheel, forming the clay with their hands, taking great care to keep just the right wetness and optimal wheel spinning speed, so the clay can be beautifully and artistically formed.

Eventually, a ceramic vessel, maybe even masterpiece, is made. The shaping of the clay using this wheel method is called “throwing” pottery, derived from the Old English word thrawan, meaning to “twist or turn.” (Much of today’s ceramic pieces are mass produced using a jiggering machine.)

During the forming process the wheel is always spinning, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, its speed determined by the potter. And, maybe most importantly, the potter’s hands never leave the clay. If the potter were to ever remove his hands, the clay would fly right off the wheel and be ruined. If the finished vessel does not meet the specifications of the potter, the process starts over again, until the vessel turns out to potter’s liking.

The Bible tells us that God is the potter and we are the clay. In Isaiah 64:8 we read these words; “Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all work in your hand.”

Jeremiah 18:1-4 says this – “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.”

So, just what is the takeaway message for us? First, we must remain soft and pliable so God can form and re-form us. Secondly, we can have complete confidence that God, our Master Potter, always has His hands on us, forming and re-forming. And lastly, whether life is spinning methodically or seemingly out of control, trust that God has not, and will not, ever let go!

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