Reformed Clay

"So I went down to the potter's house and saw him working at the potter's wheel. He was using his hands to make a pot from clay, but something went wrong with it...." (Jeremiah 18:3-4a)


Something went wrong. How many of us can look back on our lives, on the way things have turned out, on the way we have turned out, and think - something went wrong.


We feel marred, like a deformed clay pot. We can think back over the things we have done in our lives, the mistakes we've made, the people we wanted to be but somehow didn't turn into like we once dreamed.


Something went wrong. We are that clay pot.


But you know what the potter did with it? 


Well I can first tell you what he didn't do.


1. He didn't scrap it. He didn't chuck it out. He didn't say "That's ruined. Oh well, I'll just chuck it on the rubbish pile and move on to something else."


2. He didn't leave it as it was. He didn't leave it to limp through life as a substandard pot, to be looked down on and neglected because it's no good for anything.


What he did do:


"So he used that clay to make another pot the way he wanted it to be." 




In case you hadn't got it yet, you are clay. God is a potter. 


Maybe things haven't turned out the way you wanted. Maybe you aren't the person you wanted to be, you haven't reached those dreams you used to hold. Something's gone wrong.


But you are clay in the potter's hand. God can take you and reform you. He is not going to scrap you. No matter how damaged you are, you are never beyond redeeming by God. Never. You are soft clay. Clay is malleable. And you are in the hands of the master potter.


He is not going to leave you as you are. God is not going to leave you to suffer because of your mistakes, because of the way life has misshapen you and damaged you. The mistakes may be of your own doing, or the actions of others. But God is not going to leave you limping through life, not being able to live up to the purpose you were intended for.


He can take your life and reshape it. He will form it into something beautiful, something with purpose. A masterpiece. He will shape it the way he wants it.


God is the potter. You are the clay. He can take everything that feels damaged, ugly and broken, and reform it. Not just patch it up or make it 'good enough'. Reform it.


Once clay is reshaped by the master potter, there is no trace of the old, the damaged. You are a new creation. A new, beautiful masterpiece from the very hands of God, exactly as he wanted you to be.


He can do that with your life.