3 - LORD'S PRAYER - the Lord´s RequirementsSample

15 – But There Is Resistance

The potter took a lump of clay and placed it on the wheel. As he began to shape it, his eyes shone with imagination at what he could create: a beautiful work of art. He spun the wheel, wet his hands with clean water, and gently worked the clay. Through his tender touch and the water, the clay yielded to his hands. The potter’s will was being accomplished on earth!

But suddenly the wheel stopped! He had felt a pebble in the clay resisting his touch. Removing it, he smoothed the surface and set the wheel spinning again. Then came a grain of sand, leaving another flaw. A worried look crossed the potter’s face: Would there be more pebbles and grains resisting his hand? Would the work be ruined?

Soon the wheel stopped again—a crack had formed along the side of the vessel. Sadly, the potter crushed the clay.

I asked him what he would do with it now. With sorrowful eyes, he replied: “I will make an ashtray from this lump.”

The wheel turned again, and in minutes, he had shaped a simple ashtray. What was meant to be a magnificent chalice had become a crude vessel of lesser use.

As Jeremiah said, “But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him” (Jeremiah 18:4, NIV).

We must remember that we, too, came from the dust of the earth—we are humus, we are human. We need the intervention of the divine Artist to shape us!