Picture of a potter, the chance for God to help us start again
By Dean Collins
The old preacher got the idea from Jesus. Jesus got it from his Father.
I was a teenager when I heard the old preacher. I can’t remember his name. I think I heard him at a retreat in St Petersburg, Florida. It was in the early 70s, and the counter-culture movement of the 60s had bled over into the 70s. Old preachers who wore old suits were not particularly popular, even to youth who had been raised in the church.
The gathering was at the beach, so you can imagine the contrast of teenagers at the beach and how they were dressed (or maybe not dressed in much) and an old man in an old suit. He looked like he wouldn’t even fit in with the old folks at church. I anticipated a disaster. Early Christian rock bands were on the rise, and one had just performed before he was introduced. The old guy began to talk. I figured he had about 60 seconds at best before he lost the crowd. But he never did.
Stories with a prop
As he did with everyone else that day, the old preacher drew me into his story. He was a master storyteller. In his wrinkled hands he held an equally wrinkled paper sack. And he was telling us about its contents. It was probably 10-15 minutes before he opened it to reveal an old shoe. His story continued as he used every part of the old shoe to describe the kind of life Jesus had to offer. He held the attention of everyone within hearing distance for his 20 minutes.
Several years later I watched the old guy do the same thing with a group of college students at a retreat. I don’t remember making a conscious decision to emulate his methods, but over the years more often than not when I speak, I tell stories. And most of the time I use a prop.
You can’t read the Gospels without noticing how Jesus did the same thing when he spoke. He might not have had a brown paper bag but he used the landscape around him to weave his message. He spoke of farmers, gardening, architecture, foundations, lost treasures, and more. He could talk taxes and accounting or tell fish stories to lure the crowds.
Simple and understandable
As I was reading Jeremiah 18 this morning, I was struck by how God used the simple and understandable example of a potter at his wheel to help Jeremiah, Israel, and even us understand his words of life and truth. You know the passage. It’s where God sent Jeremiah to a potter’s house to watch him work. Sometimes our minds need to see something in order to comprehend. Sometimes words alone just do not connect.
As Jeremiah watched the potter, an intended shape was damaged. We can relate. How many times have we started out with good intentions and something interrupted our progress? Maybe it was a situation out of our control. So much is out of our control. Storms come in a variety of packages and can interrupt, even stop, forward progress. And sometimes we are the cause of the interruption or failure. We make mistakes, often unintentionally. And sadly, sometimes we turn away from truth and righteousness and choose to serve self, even to the point of inflicting harm on someone else.
Surrendered and reshaped
Such was the case in Jeremiah 18. God had plans for his people, but they would not cooperate. God showed through the potter’s experience that even when we deliberately mess up, we can be reshaped by God. Surrendering to the master potter’s hands can take failures and, with God’s help, change them into something beautiful.
As Daniel Iverson wrote in a chorus we’ve sung often, “Spirit of the Living God . . . melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.”
Regardless of failure and even if we are on the right path, when we surrender to God’s will, placing our lives and our future in his hands, what he can shape is far more beautiful and even functional than anything we might imagine.
Another song that speaks to this passage is the hymn “Have Thine Own Way.” I stumbled across a recording by Johnny Cash that shows the possibility of a restart. Almost through the first verse, Cash realized he started the song in a key too high for his range. He simply stops and says, “Too high, take five.” You hear him change keys and simply start over. It seems to me that’s a pretty good approach when we realize we can’t do it or we are doing it wrong. Simply stop. Take a few minutes to reconnect with God and his message and get going again.
Your time with God’s Word
Jeremiah 18:1-12 ESV
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