We are the “Clay” - 25 May 2009

“Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD; do not remember our sins for ever. Oh, look upon us we pray, for we are all your people” Isaiah 64 v 8-9

After going through a particularly painful season in my life recently, a friend of mine who I go dancing with rang me, she is not a Christian but God has been leading her gently by his Spirit since she spent a few days with me at New Wine.  She had been reading an old ‘Word for Today’ and called to share something God had clearly put on her heart to convey to me.  She read to me a passage God had given me in a previous season, but being the flawed person I am I had forgotten this, it is a promise for us all.

‘Imagine a beautiful china tea cup saying ‘I wasn’t always like this, there was a time when I was just a cold hard lump of clay.  One day the potter picked me up and said “I could do something with this.”  Then he started to put pressure on me and change my shape.  I said “What are you doing? That hurts, Stop!” but he said “Not yet.”  Then he put me on a wheel and began to spin me around and around until I shouted, “Let me off.”  He replied “Not yet.”  Then he shaped me into a cup and put me in a hot oven.  I cried, “Let me out of here, I’m suffocating” but he looked at me and said “Not yet.”  When he took me out I thought his work on me was over but then he started to paint me.  I couldn’t believe what he did next.  He put me back in the oven and I said “I can’t stand this, please let me out!” but he said “Not yet.”  Finally he took me out of the oven and set me on a shelf and held me up before a mirror.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  I had become a beautiful teacup that everyone wants to buy’.

Too often I feel more like a lump of useless clay than a beautiful tea cup, but thankfully in the ‘Potters’ Hands’ even this dollop of clay is useful.  There are things in our lives that we don’t understand.  When we finally get to the place where God wants us to be, we will realise that he has been making us into vessels he can use, bless and use to bless others.

How blessed I was by my friend.  That weekend we went dancing and she gave me a gift, as I carefully unwrapped it I held in my hands a beautiful, delicate, rose painted, gilt edged, (not guilt edged) china tea cup – it’s value - priceless!