You and I live in a world filled with brokenness. And with all the hurt and heartache and brokenness in our world, it can be easy to start wondering, “Is there any hope?”
Not unlike us, the prophet Jeremiah lived in a time of great hopelessness. God’s people had turned away from Him, and Israel and Judah were in shambles. The nation faced political upheaval, many Jews had been sent off in captivity to Babylon, and the temple had been destroyed.
Brokenness, heartache, and pain were everywhere… sound familiar?
It’s in this context we find a living illustration of hope for broken lives. Jeremiah 18:2–6 says…
“Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the Lord came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
Pottery is one of the oldest, most ancient arts. It remains virtually unchanged from its earliest conception. If you went to a potting shed in the Middle East or even in this country today, you would discover that pottery is made virtually the same way as it has been done year after year, generation after generation.
The potter puts a lump of clay on the wheel and turns it and shapes it to makes a vessel. This is where God sent Jeremiah. So what do we learn from his visit to the potter’s shed?
Failure is not final when you put your life in the Master’s hands.
Your failure – your brokenness – is not final!
Because just like the clay on the potter’s wheel, you are in the Master’s hands!
The divine Potter sovereignly breaks us, shapes us, and makes us into the persons that He desires us to be. God is the master workman, and He has a plan and a purpose for your life.
The Bible says you are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). The handprint of God is upon every life, the echo of God is in every soul. And His design… His desire is to make a beautiful vessel for His glory… will not fail. You are made to be valuable and beautiful and useful.
The clay represents you and me. Now something to know about clay is that it is colorless. It’s basically worthless in and of itself. There’s no beauty in the clay itself.
But when God gets His hands on the clay and begins to shape it and make it and even break it and bend it, He makes something beautiful out of your life.
So we have God as the potter, and you and me as the clay. And then we have the wheel. The wheel represents the daily turns and twists of life.
It is directed by the Potter, turned by the hand and the feet of God. Life is on God’s potter’s wheel. And so when we, the clay, are tossed onto the wheel of life and begin to turn, the master craftsman begins to shape us with each turn and twist. Sometimes rapidly speeding up the wheel, sometimes slowing it down to an almost interminable level.
This is not blind fate or chance. It is life directed by the divine Potter. We’re not simply going round and round in circles. According to Ephesians 2:10, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are “his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand.”
And you can be certain that none of your experiences will be wasted. God is sovereign over all of the twists and turns in your life… in tragedy, in sorrow, in grief, in pain. He knows it all and He’s working in it. And when you go through one of those times in life when the pressure is on, remember the words of Romans 8:28… “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
There’s one more thing I want you to see at the potter’s house. It’s the spoiling of a person’s life.
Look at verse 4 of Jeremiah 18… “And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand.” Spoiled! Marred. There is a defect that shows up! You can imagine the frown on the potter’s face. And the wheel slows, and his hands cease moving as he finds something in the clay that is resistant to the work of his hand. A stiffness, a brittleness, a defiance to the potter’s plans.
Maybe you are resisting the work of God’s hands in your life. Some secret in your life that is stiffening you. Some impurity in the clay of your life. A brittleness, a bitterness. And God cannot do what He desires to do in the design of your life to bring about the beauty and glory He has planned because you’re holding back, pushing Him away.
Thank God that’s not the end of the story. The master craftsmen has a tool up his sleeve – grace. When the vessel was spoiled, what did God do? Did he throw it away? No! He reworked it… He reshaped it into another vessel. He didn’t simply mend it. He made it anew into something beautiful and unimagined.
Second Corinthians 5:17 tells us “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” You don’t just get a fresh start. No, you get a brand-new life in Christ!
Our God, the divine Potter… is the God of the second chance and the third and the fourth and another and another. It’s that marvelous grace, that majestic, magnificent grace, that remakes you from the inside out.
So my friend, be encouraged today. The divine Potter making all things new! And He will do that in you because failure in your life never has to be final when you put your life in the Master’s hands.
