UNDERSTANDING THE CLAY

As a teenager growing up in East Texas, I well remember my Dad as he worked around the home place singing one of his favorite songs ...

“Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way, thou art the potter, I am the clay... Mold me and make me after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still.”

The prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah the 18th chapter, Verse 2 was instructed by the Lord to:

“2 Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.”
     God instructed Jeremiah to put himself in a position where he could hear God's voice...when Jeremiah got to the potter's house, he stated the potter was working a work on the wheels...and in the midst of making the vessel, it was marred.

     I remember many years ago, my wife and I took a trip to another state. One of the most interesting things we did was to go to a pottery shop. It was a big commercial production type shop, and as we watched the potter make a vessel, (as I recall, a beautiful vase) he suddenly stopped the work, took a tool, cutting out a part of the clay, tossing it into a pile of clay on the floor in a bin. I guess I must have been standing with my mouth open, as the potter looked at me and then at my wife as he explained “There was a grain of sand in the clay. If I had left it in there, when the heat was applied, the grain of sand would have caused the vase to break, making it of no use to anyone.” What he had really done was to remove the very thing which the average person would not have even considered as being a significant problem. I remember thinking to myself “What difference would that grain of sand really have made?” It was obvious that I knew nothing about making pottery, but in the hands of a real potter, the seemingly insignificant flaw had to be removed.
    
     So it is in our Spiritual world. In the hands of the Master Potter, we can become a useful vessel. Seemingly insignificant things in our world some times are things the true Master Potter determines will make us crack when the heat is applied. You see, the Master Potter understands the clay. We don't have a clue! If I had took the clay in my hands on that day many years ago, I would have never seen or felt that grain of sand. The potter couldn't even see that grain of sand, but in his hands, he knew the feel of the clay and knew there was something there that didn't really belong, something that really wasn't a part of the clay. So it is with the Master Potter. He can feel the things in our life that don't really belong there. It is so awesome to have a Master Potter that cares enough to cut out the parts of our lives that don't really belong. You probably don't even have a clue what God is doing with you, but be assured, He knows the clay, and only He knows what to look for in us ...It's never been His will to just throw the clay away, but rather to cut out the bad parts, crush the clay and remold us into a useful vessel. I think I'm going to adopt that song as my own...“Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way, thou art the potter, I am the clay...Mold me and make me after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still.”

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