In the Potter’s Hands

The prophet Jeremiah describes a trip he took to the potter’s house, where God spoke to him:

The LORD gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, "Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there." So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over.
Then the LORD gave me this message: "O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand." (Jeremiah 18:1–6)

We are like clay in the Potter’s hands. There are things God is doing in our lives, and we have a choice: We can respond to His working, or we can resist His working. We can yield to what He wants us to do, or we can disobey when He tells us to do something.

As we continue reading the story of Jeremiah and his visit to the potter’s house, we find a description of a field with cracked pots, vases, and wreckage. These were things that didn’t work out, so the potter took them and threw them into the field.

Life is like that. There are people who flex and move and go the way that God wants them to, and they turn into what God wants them to be. Then there are people who resist and say no to God. They self-destruct, and their lives end up in ruins, like broken pottery in a field.

God has a plan for your life. The question is this: Will you work with God’s plan, or will you resist it?