Still in His Hands

I recently bought a new diary to take down notes for my study of The Bible. It was one of those distressed looking journals with a tie that you can bind around. Since the book didn’t have any writing on its front page, I could not make out which was the front and which was the back. There was a tiny print on the bottom right corner, which I didn’t see at all in the beginning, so I started on the wrong side. It was two weeks later that I realized my mistake, and at that point I thought to myself, well it doesn’t matter, only I am using this... and so I continued writing the same way for a few more days, but had a nagging feeling at the back of my mind. Then one day I felt God saying “just because you started wrong doesn’t mean you have to continue the wrong way” and in that moment I flipped the diary to the right side and started writing over again.

Starting over maybe bothersome or difficult or to put it simply, it’s not easy. But here we all are, at the beginning of a New Year, and probably wondering what does this year hold for me?

But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. – Jeremiah 18:4

This verse talks about a potter who was making a vessel or pot with something in his mind. But the vessel he was shaping did not turn out the way he envisioned. In some versions it says, “It was marred in his hands”. i.e. it got spoilt, flawed, blemished while it was in his hands.

Three key features of good clay that can be used effectively by a potter is it’s plasticity, strength and absorption. While plasticity is the quality of being easily shaped or molded, strength is measured by its ability to hold its shape while being worked on (squeezed, turned, pulled and pushed). And finally, the longer the clay is worked upon, the more the water that gets mixed into it, increasing the chance of collapse and affecting the height and size of the vessel. Thus it is important for the clay to have low rate of absorption despite being in contact with water i.e stay undiluted through the process.

For many, the past year did not turn the way you wanted or maybe you are nowhere near where you hoped you would be at the start of this New Year. I had come across this particular verse when I had a year in my life that I wished I could change or erase completely. I wished I could just get a clean slate and start over. All of that just felt like wishful thinking, but I realized that it’s not. You can start over, you can get a clean slate and you can leave the past in the past and start anew.

Let's take Simon Peter, who is famously known by the amateur for denying Jesus not once, not twice, but three times. However, ask the expert and they will say he is known as the one who spoke and 3000 gave their hearts to Jesus on a single day. As I read recently - he went from being Simon, the clay, to living like Peter, the rock (yes, that's the meaning of his name). How did that happen? How did he go from being a person who when push came to shove, couldn’t hold his ground and denied Jesus, to a person who when he was given the choice of how he should die, said, "I'd like to be crucified up-side-down because I am unworthy to die as my Lord Jesus died.”?

I believe the events that took place in his life shook him to the very core. Until then, he hadn’t realised this is the kind of person he was. He hadn’t known his true fallen nature, or what he was capable of. He truly believed that he was bold, passionate and zealous for The Lord. When he was confronted with the eye-opening truth of his failings, he grieved and repented. Lastly, when The Lord asked him three times (almost to make up for the three times he denied Him) “Do you love me more than these Peter?” – He yielded completely – He surrendered saying “You know the truth of all things” and I believe that's when he finally submitted himself completely into the hands of Jesus.

The New King James version translates the same verse like this - “And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.”

Maybe you want parts of you to be remolded or maybe you want all of you to be reshaped, possibly into something new… whatever it is, know that He will do what is good. Remember, He doesn’t use new clay; He uses the same clay to make something new and good. Peter was still as zealous and passionate as he was before, but in a whole new way. We are always in His hands but it’s up to us to yield and be malleable. Let us be good clay in the hands of our Potter, that can be molded easily and endure all things with strength from above, ensuring we do not absorb or get diluted by the things that surround us. As we step into a New Year, I can assure you that, if we submit ourselves and give ourselves into the Potter’s hands, into Jesus’ loving hands, He can turn us, who are lumps of clay, into strong and beautiful rocks! He did it for Peter… He did it for me… and He has done it for countless others.

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

Isaiah 64:8