The Potter
Isaiah 64:8
Yet you Yahweh, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Yet you Yahweh, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
I am unique, I am one of a kind, I am Handmade and crafted by the greatest Craftsman of all. I am part of His eternal creation, I am part of Him. Moulded, shaped and fired to be all that I can be for my Maker…
Pottery is not an easy hobby. People imagine “potters” to be old people or retired housewives, with little to nothing left to do. If this is your thoughts on potters – then you are well mistaken. As human beings we hardly appreciate the art or science of something, until we try it out for ourselves. So hold your tongue about pottery, because it is not easy…
Throughout the scriptures the prophets often refer to Yahweh as the Potter. The imagery is valueless for someone who has not held clay in their hands or smelt its earthy smell. Clay comes in different colours and textures (just like mankind) and with its colour comes a distinct smell. Sometimes if you close your eyes and smell the clay, it smells like rain, other times it just smells like the earth. The earth. As I held the clay in my own hands, the words that fell from the teachers lips hit me – clay is earth. I realised right then and there that of course the prophets call us clay because we are of course from the dust of the earth.
Genesis 2:7 Then Yahweh formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being.
“The first human ever to walk the earth was named Adam. The Torah explains the name. The Hebrew word for earth is adama. God formed man from the dust of the earth, and on the simplest level, that connection with adama, earth, is the basis for man’s name. Once Adam sinned and ate the forbidden fruit, he introduced death to the world and was sentenced to once again return to the earth from which God created him (Aish.com)”
We are the clay in Father’s hand because we come from the earth and our earthly forms are filled with sin and death. So because of this reality, the Master Potter sets about changing and moulding us with much skill and effort, just like an everyday potter. Moulding pots, plates, bowls etc is a timely exercise. Sometimes if the clay is overlapping on one side, the potter cuts (with a scalpel) a part of the clay out and “knits” it back together again using a separate clay substance called SLIP. As the potter works, he or she continually presses out lumps and bumps until the clay product is precisely as the potter desires it to be. This is so much like our human form, we need moulding daily!
Yahweh our Potter should be working on us daily, removing the wounds, cutting out the sin and healing our broken tears within our dusty forms. As He works we should not tell Him what to do (as so many do!) but we should submit ourselves to Him until we are perfected. The one aspect which to me appears the scariest is the process of firing. Once the initial moulding process is complete, the pot will go in to the oven for a few hours. Some pottery works require two firings if it is set aside for a special purpose. Again, this process relates to our lives. We have to go through the fire of discipline, the fire of obedience, the fire of facing up to pain or sin, or the fire of suffering for righteousness sake. Remember Daniel’s friends who were thrown in to the fiery furnace only to find themselves walking alongside the Son of man Himself? Well, sometimes that is just how fiery life gets but because the potter knows what He is doing, He uses the flames to refine us. How hot the fire gets is up to the Potter, however every potter takes such pride in his or her work and is so zealous to behold the end product that he or she will never submit their work to unnecessary flame. It is often in the midst of the hottest flames where Yahweh’s astounding presence can be felt the most.
Brethren, perhaps you are feeling the “kneading” process or even the moulding process. Perhaps you are in the firing stage and the heat seems unbearable. I want to encourage you with the Love of the Potter. Our Master Potter is also our beloved Father and He wants you to be perfect, yes – He has called us to perfection! Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Messiah, let us go on unto perfection; (Hebrews 6:1). He is getting us ready for something greater then ourselves, something bigger and something valuable. Each one of us is a jar of clay with treasure inside, but to be all we can be, we need to trust the Potter with our clay. We are earth and back to the earth we will one day go again but for now, let the Potter mould you in to a jar to be used for His Glory, don’t fight the process rather yield to it and you will be surprised at what He has in store for you in the end….
2 Corinthians 4:7
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
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