Sticks and mud. Potter and clay. Pictures to prompt reflection
By Dean Collins
Stubborn and beautiful. Don’t go assigning that description to someone you know or are related to just yet. It might be a true description of them, but there is a pretty good chance it describes you and me as well.
The more you read Scripture the more you start connecting verses you likely never connected before. We know God is the source of all knowledge and wisdom, so it makes logical sense that he will help us connect to a deeper understanding of his Word and how it has been woven through history. The artistry of God’s creation is never stagnant. He continues to shape us and all of his creation into what will become his original and perfect creation. Our role is surrender. And when we surrender, we might just be amazed at what our surrender has made possible in his purposeful and masterful hands.
Sticks and mud
Since the beginning, God has used dirt, mud, and clay for his creative projects. Genesis 2 reminds us that we were formed from the dust of the earth, and after we were shaped, God himself breathed life into our nostrils. Some may prefer a chaotic origin story, but Scripture tells a more intentional and purposeful one. God formed us from the earth into his image.
The glory of God is woven into our very being!
But all through history humans have behaved pretty consistently like sticks in the mud, stubborn and often boring compared to what God is willing to do in us and through us.
The prophet Isaiah in a prayer of confession and repentance, declared, “But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” God has always been the potter and we have always been the clay, but for God’s artistry to work in our lives, we must be willing to submit rather than resist his creative work.
Potter and clay
God showed Jeremiah an example of how the potter and clay can work together. In Jeremiah 18, God sent the prophet to the house of a potter to watch his work. As the potter worked with the clay, the clay was spoiled, but the potter simply reworked the clay until it was shaped into something good.
The light came on for Jeremiah, and he understood what God was saying about his desire to shape his people into something beautiful. But then the Word of the Lord revealed that sadly God’s people often resist.
“But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”
The human error is too often to default to the stubborn when God offers the beautiful. This default is tied to our willful pride that whispers that we know better. There is a trail of consistent stubbornness in history of what could have been if only we had surrendered.
Beauty from ashes
But every day by God’s mercy we have an opportunity to surrender to God’s plans, which can and will result in beauty from ashes. The apostle Paul reminds us not only that we are being shaped into jars of clay but that we carry within us the priceless treasure of the gospel. Our surrender to God’s plans results in a demonstration to the world of God’s surpassing power at work in us. The goal is not that we impress anyone but rather that others are impressed at what God has done through us. The arrow of God’s creativity always points to the potter and not to the clay.
Father, forgive our stubbornness. We confess that we lean toward thinking our ways are better. We surrender to you now, acknowledging that your ways are not our ways. We come in alignment now with your will and confess that we are the clay, and you are our potter. Shape us into the very image of Jesus so that his love, mercy, and grace may flow through us and be seen today by someone who needs your loving touch. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Your time with God’s Word
Isaiah 64:8; 2 Corinthians 4:7; Jeremiah 18:2-6, 12; Genesis 2:7-8 ESV
Photo by SwapnIl Dwivedi on Unsplash
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