Day 4

Day 4 - The potter

Prepare

Where do you feel safe? Very safe? Your home, perhaps? A remote place you go to retreat from the world? Or when you are surrounded by close friends? Rest in God’s presence now and know that he is your ultimate safe place. Quietly repeat these words from Jeremiah 16:19: ‘Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress.’

Read

Explore

People learn in different ways. Auditory learners hear things spoken and get the message; kinaesthetic learners understand best through doing things; visual learners get most from what they see. Here God is reinforcing his message for visual learners (vs 2,3). The picture of the potter moulding his clay teaches us that God is shaping our lives for his purpose. He is the Creator and Craftsman who is forming us into vessels that can be filled with his Spirit and from which his love can be poured out.

What happens if that process goes awry? What if we fill the vessel with selfish ambition or evil thoughts or greed or injustice? That’s just what had happened to the people in Jeremiah’s time (vs 11,12). But God neither settles for second best nor gives up on us. Look at verses 4–6. The Potter starts work on us again to make us into what ‘[seems] best to him’. But before the new vessel can be made, the old one has to be broken. God is planning to break the Israelites by scattering them before their enemies (v 17), and there are times when it is only through our brokenness that God can form us into the people he wants us to be.

Respond

Trusting in the Father’s love for you, invite him to show you how he is working as the Potter in your life. Reflect upon what he reveals and commit yourself to cooperating with him in the way in which he wants to shape you.