Monday Rewrite: The Potter

The Lord said to Jeremiah:
‘Go down to the shop where clay pots are made. I will speak to you while you are there.’ So Jeremiah went and found the potter working at his wheel. The jar the potter was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so the potter squashed the jar into a lump of clay and started work on it again.

It’s painful at times, this constant reworking and re-molding.
And difficult to see where it will end.
If it will end at all. This reshaping, this recasting. This squashing and reforming.
Just when we see as ourselves as being in good shape, along it comes again. The creator’s hand. Sometimes through life and its events.
Sometimes through people and their actions.
Sometimes through other things.
Hard to be humble, a challenge to be cheerful.
Not always easy to see that in this reshaping others get a vision of God at work.
His presence, his compassion, his strength and kindness.

And the potter keeps on working.

Want to be strong, want to be already perfect. Already fully formed.
Don’t want to be precious treasure held in a clay pot that will always be a work in progress.
Want to be something else.
Something more finished, something more perfect, something strong and noble.
Don’t want God’s power to be working through my weakness.
Want it to be on display through beauty and strength.

And the potter keeps on working.

And so the reshaping goes on.
Along with the struggling and the believing and the questioning and the trusting and the doubting.
The longing and praying and hoping.
In the good moments we glimpse his hand at work.
On the difficult days we wonder what on earth is going on.

And the potter keeps on working.

The Lord said to Jeremiah:
‘Go down to the shop where clay pots are made. I will speak to you while you are there.’ So Jeremiah went and found the potter working at his wheel. The jar the potter was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so the potter squashed the jar into a lump of clay and started work on it again.

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