"But now, O Lord, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand." -Isaiah 64:8
When I thought of the potter and the clay, I always just imagined the clay sitting on the wheel passively and being shaped by the Potter i. e. God. However, my mother brought another image to light which heretofore had not crossed my mind. When a potter begins a work of art, his medium with which he begins is a rough, ugly lump of mud. It doesn't have anything attractive about it either. Because it is so lumpy and hard, the artist must throw the clay lump onto his wheel. He slams it down, smashes it; sometimes he has to be very rough with it to get the stubborn mud rid of lumps. It is a long process of smoothing, shaping, perfecting and beautifying the once ugly lump of mud. But, just when the clay thinks the trials and pain are over, the vessel is glazed and put into a hot kiln. The heat hardens the clay into the ceramic of which the finished product is composed. After it comes out, the vessel's shiny glaze is bright and beautiful, a truly wonderful work of art.
"Ok Grace," the reader may say, "But how does this apply to me?" Well, let me tell you how I see it now. We start out just as the lump of ugly clay. Romans 3:10 says, "There is none righteous, no not one." God takes us, his elect people, not from anything that he sees in us, but because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, His son. "for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls." (Romans 9:11)
He molds us and shapes us through many trials and tribulations, until we are perfected and reflecting righteousness. At last, we are perfected, shiny, beautiful, but do we praise the vessel for it's own beauty or do we praise the Potter, it's Maker? Of course, God made us, and he chose us from the foundations of the world to be His elect. All glory should always go to Him. He made us, He chose us, and He redeemed us from the condemnation of sin and death brought to earth by the fall. Never take what Jesus did for granted, and never, ever underestimate your mother.