A Resilient Life

God's Extreme Makeover There were times I thought, Have I made a mess of my life? Did I wish I could have another chance or start over again? If I felt that way, perhaps you may be experiencing some of the same feelings. If that's is so, I have good news for you: God wants to make your life over anew, and He can do it if you'll let Him. He sent His prophet Jeremiah to teach Israel a lesson. Jeremiah 18:1–2 says, "The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear My words.” The sovereignty of God was manifest over the stubborn southern kingdom of Judah. It continued its evil ways in disobedience to God, which caused God to be displeased with the hardened hearts of the people. Like Judah, we who are disobedient are reminded that God, like the potter, can mold us and form us into vessels that are made perfect in the image and likeness of the Potter. Whatever brokenness we may be experiencing in life, we can find comfort in the knowledge that the Potter can restore us and make us whole. The essential element needed for the Potter to do His work is for us, the clay, to be obedient and willing to be formed by the Potter's mighty but gentle hands. The Potter restores the broken, the Potter relents for the repentant, and the Potter reconsiders blessing for the disobedient. Let's have a little art class to see how the Potter molds us. As you all know, pottery is one of the oldest arts in the world, and it remains virtually unchanged to this present time. This is what I understand about pottery. The potter takes a lump of clay and twists, kneads, and pounds it until all of the bubbles and impurities are gone and it is soft and pliable. After that, he puts the clay on his wheel, which is turned by a treadle. The potter throws the lump of clay right in the middle of the wheel, and the wheel spins. Then, the potter caresses the clay with his talented fingers and smooths it. From that unlovely, unlikely lump of clay would come a marvelously beautiful vessel. Verse six tells us very clearly that God is the Potter, and humankind is the clay: "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel." God is the master Workman, and He wants to make something beautiful out of your life. In other words, the Potter wants to put you back together again. Two things form the vessel: the touch of the Father's hand and the turning of the wheel. The wheel represents the circumstances of our daily lives because God sees to it that our lives revolve around certain events. The whole time God is touching our lives and making them what He wants them to be. However, Jeremiah 18:4 says "the vessel was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. I'll guarantee you the problem was not in the Potter but in the clay. As with clay, there are two things that can keep your life from being what it ought to be. The clay might contain a hidden impurity, a flaw beneath the surface; perhaps down deep there's some secret sin that nobody knows. Perhaps the clay is just not pliable enough. Perhaps it's stiff and unyielding to what the Lord is saying. The Lord tells you to witness, but you won't. He tells you to give, but you don't. You need to forgive, but you can't. You see, none of these things should move you as I have great news for you. You must believe that there is still hope for you. Why? Verse four says, "He made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it." It was still in the hands of the Potter. God could still make this vessel again because the clay was still soft enough. God can take you right now where you are as you are reading about your extreme makeover and make out of your life another vessel. God can mend a broken life if you give Him all the pieces, so just turn them over to Him and say, "Here they are, Lord." God wants to give you a second chance. Even though there is hope, there comes a warning. In Jeremiah 19, God told Jeremiah to get a vessel from the potter. Verse 10 says, “Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee." God said, "Do you see this clay vessel? Watch it as it is smashed to smithereens, unable to be fixed." Our God is saying that people can go on in their sins until the clay is set and hardened, but God is the God of a second chance. There comes a time when a life is so hardened by sin that God gives that individual up. You'll cross God's deadline, and like a vessel, you cannot be put together again. Really that's not God's plan or desire. He yearns to mold the soft clay of our hearts and make them beautiful and useful. I encourage you to yield to His touch. Jeremiah had been to the potter's house and had seen the potter making a vessel. He knew it was love behind the potter's pressures. When the vessel was marred, the potter was capable of crushing it, bringing it to nothing but a lump, and then molding and shaping it once again, perhaps doing this again, until at last it fulfilled what the potter wanted. That is the great lesson Jeremiah learned at the potter's house, and that we can learn at the potter's house, as well. In Paul's second letter to Timothy, he says, But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. (2 Timothy 2:20–21) One of the great lessons we can learn from the New Testament's use of the figure of the potter is in the book of Acts. Judas brought back the thirty pieces of silver and flung them down at the feet of the priests after having betrayed his Lord. The priests gathered up the money and took counsel together, and bought with the money a potter's field. It was known thereafter as "the field of blood." This, once again, is God's wonderful reminder of the heart of the Potter. If you watch this Potter very carefully, at work in your life, you will find that His hands and His feet bear nail prints. It is through blood, the blood of the Potter Himself, that the vessel is being shaped into what He wants it to be. When we are in the Potter's hands, feeling his pressures, feeling the molding of his fingers, we can relax and trust him. We know that this Potter has suffered with us and knows how we feel, but is determined to make us into a vessel "meet for the master's use” (2 Timothy 2:21). What a tremendous and beautiful lesson Jeremiah learned at the potter's house, one which I hope will guide us and guard us under the pressures which are coming into our lives these days. Remember that the Potter has a purpose in mind, and the skill and ability to fulfill it, no matter how many times He may have to make the vessel over again. "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel” (Jeremiah 18:6).