16 “You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?"
Isaiah 29:16(ESV)
I am finally growing in my cooking skills, at least I’m preparing a few entrées. I still haven’t baked a cake in my life, but that may be next.
Have you mastered much in the kitchen? (If so, I may need your number or recipe book!)
One thing I have discovered along the way is that a culinary dilemma awaits me every time I decide to cook for others.
Do I serve things up based on how I want things to taste or look, or based on how I know my family and friends would want things to roll out? That’s a Catch-22 for me. And it’s a dilemma whenever you and I serve things up to God too. How do we approach things?
Our Bible makes it quite clear over multiple passages that our name is “Clay,” and His is “Potter.” Like perpetual adolescents, we want to question our Father and serve things up to Him and others the way we choose. God doesn’t always dig those recipes.
The way to serve it up to Him is simply, repeatedly offering ourselves to Him the way He wants it, as clay.
So what does clay do? Just two things:
- BE MOLDABLE. God wants people He can work with. Humility gives rise to moldability, like yeast to dough. True worship of Him is birthed there too.
That’s why these words frame the earliest parts of The Lord’s Prayer, the one that He told us should set the tone for our prayer life: “Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth (among us/in us) as it is in heaven.”
“Moldable” is the password to a powerful prayer life, proof of our identity as good clay and the promise of a bright, purpose-driven future.
- REMAIN IN THE POTTER'S HANDS. Clay outside the hands of the Potter is useless. It can’t really make itself into anything truly, fully useful. And if it gets into another’s hands, it could be fashioned into something else for dangerous purposes.
Clay is at its best when it remains in the Potter’s hands. That’s a good precept to pray too! “Keep me within Your hands, O Lord! That’s where I am safest and best.”
Being lovingly born and bred in God’s “kitchen,” let us serve our lives up to Him just the way He likes it -- moldable and remaining in His hands. That’s a heavenly recipe that all can enjoy!
A prayer to consider: Lord, my name is Clay. Use me as You wish today for Your glory. I believe my joy awaits in Your molding, in Your hands.
