A Local Potter
There’s a shop in Lancaster, PA that sells beautiful pottery pieces from a local potter. Each of the pieces are unique and beautiful, brightly colored and eye-catching. They’re also really expensive. That’s because each piece takes hours to create, and no two pieces are the same. They are all uniquely different. I’ve bought a few pieces over the years as gifts for people.
A Potter in Old Testament Times
The picture of the potter seemed to be a popular way for the people to understand how God works, because God was constantly using the potter to teach his people lessons in the Old Testament.
In the book of Jeremiah, God tells the prophet Jeremiah, “Go on down to the potter’s house and watch the potter. I’m going to use him to teach you and my people a few lessons.”
So I went to the potter’s house, and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel. Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot.
Jeremiah 18:3,4 MSG
Then the Lord gave me this message: “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.
Jeremiah 18:5,6 NLT
Lessons from the Potter
What do these verses teach us about God, as the Master Potter? Here are four life lessons we can learn from the potter.
1. A potter doesn’t discard the clay when the vessel he’s creating doesn’t turn out right.
Just as the potter doesn’t throw away the clay simply because it didn’t turn out the way he wanted, so God doesn’t set us aside when we make mistakes or when we experience massive failure in our lives. He simply helps us put the pieces of our life back together again and uses those failures to shape us into who he wants us to be.
2. The potter knows the value of the clay.
The potter knows the value of good clay and won’t throw any of it away. In the same way, God sees value in us long before we become anything spectacular.
3. A potter doesn’t get angry at the imperfections; he just starts over.
A good potter doesn’t react in anger when what he is creating doesn’t turn out. He simply molds it together and starts again. Similarly, God doesn’t get angry at us in our frailty. He patiently molds us and shapes.
4. The potter sees the final product in his head before it takes shape in his hands.
A potter has in his creative mind what the final product is going to look like. Then he patiently works at it until the piece resembles the picture in his mind. God does that same with us. He sees the final product, and he won’t give up until we resemble that final product.
Our job in all of this is to simply stay moldable, shapable. How do we do that? We have to constantly be tuned in to his voice and working in our life. We can do that in four ways.
1. Spend time every morning with God.
The easiest way for me to do this is to start each morning with my morning time routine. Check out My Best Tips for a Morning Time Routine.
2. Get plugged into a local church.
One of the best ways to stay close to God is to connect and align ourselves with him each week by listening to good preaching, participating in worshiping God through music, serving God and others, and fellowshipping with other believers. We can do all this by getting plugged into a local church.
3. Join a small group.
I am a huge proponent of small groups, even though I didn’t grow up with small groups. But after more than eight years of participating in small groups, I can see the amazing value of them. There’s something about being accountable to the same group of people week after week. Sharing a meal together, doing a Bible study and praying together each week, and just doing life together week after week keeps you accountable in a way that church just doesn’t. We love our small group and couldn’t imagine doing life without the members of our group.
If you’re interested in learning more about small groups, I devoted a chapter to small groups in both of my books—The Hidden Pain: When You Fear God is No Longer Blessing Your Life and Finding Free: 5 Simple Steps to a More Peaceful, Content, and Happy You. You can check them out on Amazon.
4. Listen to good music and podcasts throughout the week.
Another way to stay close to God during the week is to listen to good Christian music and podcasts. By filling our hearts and minds with more of God and his goodness to us, we keep a tender heart towards him and are more apt to hear his voice and see his hand guiding us.
It’s our job to stay moldable, ready and willing to follow as God leads in our lives. It’s God’s job to make us into the person he created us to be. When we do our job and allow God to do his job, we will find ourselves at complete peace.
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