It is late but I cannot sleep till I write this....I had a dream a few weeks ago that has stayed with me. My husband was in it and without giving all the details, I just want to share one part. As he fell to the ground looking like he was in pain, I immediately fell beside him begging him to tell me how I could help him. He spoke these words...."I need the Potter's report.....". There was more but those words kept coming to me, how odd. You know how we dream some crazy things sometimes and I ignore a lot of it. But this bothered me. What did that mean? So I searched with some friends in scripture and on line to see what I would find. I came to Jeremiah to the well known verses about the Potter's House and this morning I felt clarity.....one verse in particular jumped out at me.....
The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. 4 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. Jeremiah 18:1-4
Who is the Potter? The Lord.... What am I? The clay. The Potter was making a vessel and it was "marred" or as the Hebrew meaning is, "ruined". I stared at this for awhile......it was the Potter that ruined the vessel and made another as it seemed good to Him. I have had to look at my life and see a complete change in it. I have felt so broken at times I felt I was ruined. This vessel was not ruined by life, by circumstances, by people, places or things....it was ruined by the Potter. But why? for what purpose? To be made into another vessel......
There are many brothers and sisters who are going through life changing experiences, that have left them so broken. The trials are painful, tiring, traumatic to the point of exhaustion and the temptation to give up is ever looming. How we see the Maker and how we see ourselves is key to going the distance. I saw it again in this verse. My Lord has me in His hands and is the One forming me. His goal is not to keep me from all the force of the Potter's wheel, or to work around all the deformities in me but to work them out. To constantly keep me pliable and remove from me all that is in the way. He wants to make "another vessel as it seems good to Him". He is not asking me for my opinion, (though I offer it often)....I want the painless, easy way....I want to be coddled at times. This will not do, He is committed to showing me all the "sins and weights that so easily beset me" (Hebrews 12). Yes I am forgiven, washed in the blood, by this alone I can stand before God. Yet I can see that I am far from perfection, nor do I excuse myself from pursuing to be like Him. Like Paul I want to press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.... (Phil 3). There is more, so much more than what I have experienced, so much more to grasp. I have felt despair like never before, a magnificent obsession has taken hold of me. If He has ruined us then He is making another vessel....as it seems good to Him. It is not about us, it is about Him. That is my greatest fault, making it about me.......no matter how hard the trial, no matter how ruined we feel, may we believe that He is ever committed to finishing what He has begun...............all for His Glory and His Honor....
I would like to see in heaven, and would wish to hear the Lord giving my husband "the Potter's Report". "It is good John, she may be ruined but she is soft clay in my hands and I am making something altogether new." Oh Lord, may it be so! All for You!
