18 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.
Jeremiah 18:1-4
Let’s look at the metaphor of God being like a potter again. Jeremiah uses the metaphor to speak into how God is trying to shape and reshape Israel who is resisting him, into the dream he has for them. It is obvious that the potter, whom we understand to be God, has a plan for the pot he is trying to throw. And he doesn’t give up. But it seems like the clay also has a mind of its own and resists or bubbles out or somehow is not just what the potter had in mind and so the potter tries again.
As I face the funeral of my husband, I find this verse very comforting. The shape of our lives is malleable. Our mistakes need not define us forever for God has the power to rebuild that which is broken by life or misshapen when we are T-boned by others.
Right now as I anticipate placing the cremains of a person I love into a crematorium, these verses speak to the resurrection and giving of an eternal body that does not respond to the laws of reality, as I now know them. God can take the ashes and create something new and beautiful, even as a seed is put in the ground and grows into the beautiful bouquets that sit on my table. God is able to take our misshaped lives and even that which appears dead and useless and make something beautiful. To him be the glory.
On the Way to Wonder 