Devotional 3-12-10

Isaiah 64:8 – “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter.”

Think about the image inherent in this verse from Isaiah. God is the potter, and we are the lump of clay that takes shape in His hands. Visualize a potter’s wheel on which lies a shapeless lump that has just the right consistency to be molded. The potter makes the wheel spin; she slowly, carefully begins to shape the clay according to a design that she carries in her mind. She alone decides what the design and purpose of her project will be. As the design takes shape, the potter needs to do some reshaping as the design fails to take the intended shape.

Isaiah says that we are the shapeless lump of clay and the design for the purpose of our lives is in the mind of God, the potter. What might that purpose be? Perhaps it is teaching, preaching, caring for children, serving the poor, tithing, leading, following, making policies, following the policies made by others; the possibilities are endless. However, all too often we reject God’s plan because the devil convinces us that we have a better one. God may need to do some reshaping as he calls us back to our true purpose.

I heard Jim McCune, recent pastor at the Campus Christian Center, preach a sermon at a United Methodist Conference regarding our need to “return to the potter’s shed.” He indicated that people have drifted away from God’s plan and that we need to return to the potter’s shed to be reshaped. Jeremiah 18:3-4 speaks to this. “So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.”

Have we become spoiled by drifting away from God’s purpose for us? What would God, the Potter need to do to reshape our lives? What new directions would we need to take to put us in line with God’s purpose for us, to be God’s hands and feet in the world?

When we pick up the newspaper, we see greed instead of generosity, violence instead of peace, injustice instead of justice, and hate instead of love. Shouldn’t we love as God has loved us, seek justice, share our resources with others, join in the work of God’s kingdom, and put ourselves in God’s hands to constantly allow ourselves to be reshaped so He can use us here in this place at this time? We need to develop reliance on God to show us the way, to point to the things He needs for us to do, which are many.

Maudie Karickhoff