Blog # 51 THE POTTER - THE CLAY

Blog # 51 THE POTTER - THE CLAY The eighteenth chapter of the book of Jeremiah contains that beautiful and well-known passage in which the prophet describes God as a potter and His people as the clay to be formed into a vessel of beauty and usefulness. We are given the image of God shaping His people according to a plan in His mind for them. Though the passage directly concerns nations and kingdoms before the Lord, it can also be applied to individuals. Each of us has been created by God because God loves us. Recently I heard a preacher tell a group of people that none of them was wanted by their parents. It sounded false and shocking at first, but he insisted upon the truth of his statement and explained it very well. He pointed out that parents did not know us and therefore could not really want us either as their child or their friend. They may have wanted a baby very much, and we happened to be that baby. When we came they began to know us and loved us, now by the very name they would give us as their son or daughter and as their friend. But with God it is different. From all eternity God knew us 'by name'. God called us into our mother's womb and from her womb. (Jer 1:4) Every moment of our lives each of us is known and loved by God. He is the potter of our lives and we are His clay. What a difference the insight I am considering would make if we would make ourselves aware of it and be conscious of it in our daily experience of life. Nothing and no person would enter or leave our life without God being present and even being in control. Yes, God does guarantee our freedom and this freedom of ours is a mystery we ourselves cannot understand, but even in our freedom God is the potter and we are the clay. Each of us has has been created by God because God loves us. We are not alone, ever. God is with us, molding us, shaping us, forming us according to the pattern God has determined for us from all eternity. What joy it is to know this, and to walk hand in hand as it were with our God, each step of the way!