Spiritual Formation - Lessons From The PotterSample

God Plans Disaster  

Before the clay is shaped into a pot, the potter pounds and hammers the hard lumps of clay into powder. The potter then tramples upon the powdered clay while adding water until it becomes soft and pliable. The prepared clay is then slapped onto a wheel before it is spun around rapidly. The potter, only then, begins to work on the clay. The clay has been pounded, hammered and tread upon, and spun around rapidly before the actual work of shaping the pot began 

Jeremiah 18 11b says ‘…this is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you’.

This is quite the opposite of the most often quoted, rather misquoted, verse in the Bible Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Spiritual formation is, therefore, not just an ecstatic ‘high’. but it’s about going through the grind. It’s about being beaten down, being spun around in a seemingly monotonous routine before God begins his work, with His hands. When we don’t quite fit into His pattern, he does deform us. Let’s remember that God does destroy, God does orchestrate disaster and God does crush people, for a greater good. May we accept those difficult times to eventually reflect His creative work in us.