Declaration 2023: The DevotionalsSample

The Transformative Touch of God

- by Shem Pinnock

‘“O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand.”’ (Jeremiah 18:6)

It is often in the character of God to use simple things to display his sovereignty so we, in our finite minds, can understand God’s will and purpose for our lives. We see this in Jeremiah 18. God instructs the prophet to go to the potter’s house to watch him work with clay. God tells Jeremiah the clay represents the children of God, and the potter represents God himself.

Just as the potter worked the clay, God in Genesis 2:7 ‘formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.’ Everything else in creation was spoken into existence by his imperative word, but we were made through the tactile touch of an intangible God. God uses the potter and the clay as a live visual metaphor to demonstrate how we were created through the intimacy of God’s loving embrace.

As Jeremiah looks, he sees the clay spinning on the potter’s wheel. This is very reminiscent of us – as we go through the turns and changes of life, it is often unclear what God is doing and how he shapes us. Through the uncertainty of transition and transformation, we must trust the process, believing that God, the potter, is at work and he has a divine plan and purpose.

As the potter shapes the clay, Jeremiah sees it has been ‘marred’, meaning it had been damaged or even broken, but the beauty in the scripture is that although the vessel had been damaged, it was ‘marred in the hand of the potter’ (Jeremiah 18:4). What a blessed assurance! Despite our fragmented condition, we are still in his hands, for there is no better place to be broken than in the hands of God! John 10:28 says, ‘I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.’

For if we are in his hand, we know he can mend the broken pieces, make us whole and transform our lives forever!

Prayer

I pray each of us will know the intimacy of God’s loving embrace as he shapes us for his plan and purposes. Amen.