In the Potter’s Hands

Some years ago I watched a blind potter work with a group of eighth grade students.  She gave each student a moist lump of clay and demonstrated how to make a pot with a lid.  Each student began fashioning a pot according to his or her imagination.  Some coiled thin ropes of clay around a base and upwards while others pinched the clay into bowls.  Being eight graders, they also caused pieces of the clay to end up as fake moustaches, earrings or alien creatures which were not part of the potter’s lesson plan.  The kids presumed that the potter, being blind, would not know the difference.  However, the potter’s ears served her well, and she was wise to the ways of eighth graders.  She kept bringing them back to the task of creating a pot until they became absorbed in the assignment.  The task proved more difficult than it appeared.  Soon students were groaning when an almost finished pot collapsed at a critical point or curved in an unplanned bulge.

The potter followed the sound of each cry and gently took the broken pot in her hands.  With agile fingers, she found the problem.  Instead of smoothing the defect away, she deftly included it as an interesting feature in the overall design.  The students were surprised and delighted each time the potter made something beautiful come out of an apparent disaster.

In a group discussion not long ago, some of us wondered whether or not God deliberately sets up trials and obstacles to test our faith.  Frankly, I have always made enough mistakes all by myself to save God the trouble of manufacturing difficulties for me.  When I realize what a mess I have made in my own life, then I am like the students of the blind potter who cried out for help.  It isn’t until I hand my “pot” mistake and all, over to the Master Potter that he can bring something good out of my tragedy.

God used the betrayal of Joseph by his brothers to save the Israelites from famine.  He brought our salvation out of death on a cross.  I can always trust the skill in the potter’s hands to salvage something both good and interesting out of the broken places in my life.