Jeremiah 18:1-6

This passage has more drama than the one in Isaiah 64. Here, God intimates that even though the original vessel was marred and unusable according to the original intent, He could still shape it into something that would be useful to Him, even though it might not be as beautiful as the original. It is a story of redemption after something goes wrong. But the potter determines the form and substance of the vessel after the redemption, not the clay. This idea carries into the New Testament in Roman 9:19-24, where Paul teaches that God can make whatever sort of vessel He chooses, and the thing formed has no basis for calling God into account.

God is the Potter, expertly working with the clay to fashion it into what He desires. But His work with us is a process, and we need to evaluate from time to time whether we are still yielding to His work.

Sometimes it feels like we are just going in circles. Well, Jeremiah mentions the potter’s wheel, so, as clay, we may indeed be going ‘round and ‘round. But because of God’s workmanship, we can also trust that with each revolution on the wheel under God’s hands, we are taking on a little more of the image that He desires for us.

Working with clay requires a lot of pounding and kneading and great pressure. We can identify with that. We don’t always understand the reasons for the pressure and the pounding, but we can know it is part of His working with us to make us pliable and ready to respond to Him without any resistance or hesitation. If we are prone to resisting and determined to have things our way, then we can expect more pressure and kneading until we surrender and become pliable in His hands.

We can add another reality to this picture, which is what the clay must undergo once it has been shaped into its final form. That is, it must be heated with extreme temperatures, baking the form into permanence. So, even after God has developed His character within us and has engraved His laws on our hearts so they are our first nature, we can still expect high heat to make the finished form permanent—to make it eternal.

So, if we feel like our lives are spinning, or the pressure is agonizing, or the heat seems unbearable, it doesn’t have to mean that God has cursed us. Of course, if we are sinning or otherwise turning away from Him, He may respond with merciful chastening. So, when adverse events happen to us, it certainly is appropriate to consider our ways, and to seek God to see if He is bringing something to our attention.

But as with Job, the presence of adversity may also just be an indicator that the Master Potter is shaping and perfecting us. Once we have sought God and determined that He is not chastening because of sin, our response should be to yield in patience. As James says, we must let patience have its perfect work.

We should also recognize that the carnal man is satisfied with his present spiritual image and doesn’t see the need for any changes. The carnal man says there is no good reason for us to endure pressure or adversity or high heat. He is the one that says, “This shouldn’t be happening to me.” He may whisper to us that we are above hardship because we are so spiritual. This is the essence of the attitude in Laodicea, which says, “I am in need of nothing.” Likewise, Babylon says in her heart, “I sit as queen … and will not see sorrow.”

Hopefully, we are not foolish enough to say those quiet parts out loud, but those attitudes show up in how we live and respond to events and circumstances—that is, whether we acknowledge and welcome God’s turning of us on His potter’s wheel, or whether we recoil at the thought that we need it.

So, in the face of adverse events or circumstances, it is appropriate to ask God, “Why is this happening?” In fact, we should do this. God fired warning shots like famine, drought, flooding, pestilence, and burning to get ancient Israel’s attention, but Israel brushed them off, and continued on without considering why. The … . . .