The Potter's Hands

We all tend to admire hand-crafted objects, such as pottery more than mass produced ones that are fashioned by machines. There is something beautiful and intricate about these pieces that make them stand out from others. Potters go through several stages of crafting so as to make sure that the piece that they have made fits the idea that they have in their minds to become the perfect vessel or a beautiful ornament.

Needless to say no potter is perfect. No one gets the piece that they want on the first try. So if the potter realizes during the molding of the clay, he'll smash it, knead the clay back again that start all over. To someone watching him, it may seem they had made the perfect piece, and it would seem foolish to them that the potter would destroy it to start again. But the potter knows that clay, he knows how he wants to mold it, and he knows that he can bring out the beauty and perfection in it that makes people gape at it in awe.

Imagine if the clay could talk the the potter, what do you think it'd say. "Hey, I know you may think you know what's best for me, but I think that I'm just fine that way I am. Breaking is painful and messy and I'd prefer not to do that again." And imagine if the potter agreed with him, and let the clay go. It'd probably be nothing more than an unremarkable piece, with half the beauty it could have had, a piece that no one would even think about looking at twice, deluded into thinking that he's the best.

We'd think that the clay was stupid. We do everything would can to be perfect and beautiful and have the best life we can, so surely we'd go through a couple breakings. But the truth is, more times than often we are just like that clay. Sometimes God wants to mold us into something greater than what we want to be, and to do that sometimes He has to break us. We don't like being broken though, and we view it as a bad thing, not as an opportunity to become a better us. Ans sometimes, when confronted by the idea of radical change, we choose another option, one that doesn't involve us changing our entire lives. We fail to see the whole picture and fail to understand that the destruction of this life would lead to the construction of another.

And perhaps you don't believe a God exists (I don't judge, but I'd advise you look into that.) There are things in your life that you are afraid to do because you can't see that outcome. You choose to play it safe and you never achieve the best that you can. You need to shake off the mediocrity that holds you back and take a risk. I'm not saying that it's not going to hurt. In fact, more likely that not it is going to hurt. But you'll invariably become a better person because of it. Don't fight the potter's hands. They are what make us the best we can be.




See you tomorrow.