pottery

Last week when I was visiting Nic in Indianappolis, we went to an awesome church on Sunday! The Pastor was talking about God shaping us, as we are clay. That's an analogy that I have always loved and related to, because it's so visual and I do much better with things when I can visualize them. A potter knows the exact mixture that is in the clay, he knows exactly what to add or take away, which way to move his hands, where to put the curves or the handle or the spoout. There is nothing that arises that a potter can not take care of an correct to make the perfect pot/vase/animal. And each piece of pottery has it's own specific purpose. I mean, could that sound anymore like God?? That he knows everything about us! And that he designed each person so specifically- no mistakes were made and that he's continually molding us for a specific purpose. Even when we do not know what we should be, God does.
Not to mention, that God made man out of the dirt - kinda like a potter - weird huh?? :) :) :)

So I looked up some verses about pottery and I like to meditate on them - so here they are.

Isaiah 29:16 You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
"He did not make me"?
Can the pot say of the potter,
"He knows nothing"?

Isaiah 64:7-9 7 No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and made us waste away because of our sins.

8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.

9 Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD;
do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look upon us, we pray,
for we are all your people.

Jeremiah 18:2-4 2 "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." 3 So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

Jeremiah 18:5 &6 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

Romans 9:20-22 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "[a] 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?