I Am the Clay

I recently wrote my first book called, Going Through Hell: And How to Make it To the Other Side. Throughout the process, I had a lot of memories to recall as I wrote the stories I was planning to publish. I have seen so many people walking through the same fires lately that I really wanted to share some of my fire experiences, what I learned in them, and how God brought me through them. 

I was sitting at my computer looking at my screen and my mind just remembering and wandering through some of the memories when I started to feel so crushed. See, in the middle of yet another round of processing, I am still be molded, modeled, added to, excess removed, and put in the fire. To be honest, I don’t ever want to stop being in the hands of the Potter, God, as He is making me who He wants me to be. However, it doesn’t make it easier to endure the process.

I love a good analogy, so digging deeper into the pottery analogy, I started to read about grog and clay. I found out that a dried pot, that has never been fired, can be ground up and water added to reconstitute clay. It can then be recast and made into something new. However, when the pot has been fired in the furnace (kiln), it changes chemically. The intense heat hardens the clay turning it into pottery or tiles into bricks.

There are many methods that are used to repair pottery. One Japanese tradition is to fill in the cracks with a lacquer and then paint the seams with gold or silver powder making the pottery even more attractive. There is another method that takes the broken pottery, that I would assume is unrepairable due to smaller pieces and grinds it to a powder. Since the pot has been chemically changed, it cannot be turned back into clay. But potters still use it. It is called grog. Grog can actually be made of a few different materials that have been ground up. It is then set aside until it is needed. When the potter is ready, they will take the grog and mix it with fresh clay. The grog, which is solid, will then combine with the fresh, new clay, which is porous and makes it stronger.

I stood back and let this whole story sink in. Here’s what the Holy Spirit said to me.

“Many of us have gone through molding, shaping, glazing and firing. We have been through being displayed, used to hold many things and were beautiful to see. Then, in life and living in a world that is imperfect and full of sin, we go through a fall. When we are dropped, the fall can break us and sometimes God chooses to repair us for a beautiful piece of art to be displayed. He fills us with His treasures, and we become perfectly imperfect. There are others that have been broken so severely that God decides to use them for something bigger. It feels like hell but then we are given new clay. The remnants of the past pottery makes the new pottery even stronger than before. It can even be shaped into something completely different.”

Then He reminded me that He isn’t done with me yet. I am still in process. I may go through multiple castings, shaping, firing, breaking, grinding, adding new clay, being reshaped, glazed, fired, and so on. When we completely surrender to the potter, we will use us for what is needed in that season for those specific purposes. We may have started out as a mug holding only a small amount of liquid but then, God uses the brokenness as an opportunity to make us into something completely different. However, the clay never looks at the potter and tells Him what He should make. The clay doesn’t know what is needed to be useful. The potter may need a plate or a bowl, but the clay doesn’t look at Him and say, “No, I want to be a vase and decorate the house by holding flowers.”

I have made the choice, again, in the middle of another process, that I will still surrender to God, the potter. I won’t let my pride render me useless but instead I will listen to the Holy Spirit when He shows me my errors and gives me the strength to remain humble and usable for God.

Will you?

“The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “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. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’” (Jeremiah 18:1-11 ESV)

“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.” (Isaiah 64:8 ESV)

“You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?” (Romans 9:19-24 ESV)

“You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?” (Isaiah 29:16 ESV)