God is the Potter - Moms and Dads are the Clay
I recently received a gift in the mail from a dear friend who lives in Alabama. It was a coffee mug which read, …”but God.” She told me about a place she recently visited with her church group called Prodigal Pottery. This business is a nonprofit where incredible women who are in the process of rebuilding their lives after fleeing homelessness, domestic abuse, and trafficking create handmade pottery. I learned that an important step in the pottery process is refining, where the pottery goes back to a piece and removes the rough edges. At Prodigal Pottery, the women call it “loving” the piece. They give it the love it needs to turn it into something altogether new, unrecognizable from the clay from which it was made – a perfect metaphor for their own redemption.
In thinking about this, it reminds me of the work God does in the lives of parents through the rearing of their children. He loves us by taking off those rough edges of our lives through the process of sanctification, and the instrument – child rearing. When I reached the point of desperation and admitted that I could not do the task of parenting in my own strength, God began to teach me through the gracious instruction of His Word and the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Are you at that point yet?
Just as God molds us into the persons He wants us to become (we never fully arrive this side of heaven) and the parents our children need, our role as God’s ambassadors is to mold and shape the lives of our children. They do not belong to us as possessions; rather, they are on loan to us by God for a season. As God’s sovereignty over our lives gives us comfort, assurance, and blessing; likewise, the rearing and training of your children gives them assurance of your love, offers comfort in your home, and provides spiritual blessings. I believe the best way to impart confidence in our children is to model confidence in God. How do we model that confident faith? We model by word and deed, especially in our homes.
Isaiah 64:8 tells us that God is the potter, and we are the clay. Just as you deal with your children in ways that they cannot understand, so our heavenly Father molds us and shapes us in ways that we do not understand and in ways that sometimes hurt. But He always deals with us in love, and we should never forget that. In times like these when we wonder, may we look at the cross of Christ in our mind’s eye - that is all the proof we need.
And while we are not asked to give our very lives for our children, the call to rear children requires such sacrifice that at times it feels like we’re giving our very life. God sees. The clay only needs to rest in the Potter’s hands. Are you resting and trusting that the Potter is working because of His deep love for you and your children? He is. He is taking off those rough edges through His sanctifying work. And while it doesn’t always feel like it, remaining on the Potter’s wheel, trusting in God’s heart when we don’t see His hand, is the safest place to be.
