About the Clay

“Have thine own way, Lord. Have thine own way. Thou art the potter. I am the clay” I was thinking on this hymn the other day. Meditating on being the clay. Just what does that mean? Clay is not really that remarkable. It is mud. Dirt. The stuff your mom yells at you about when you walk through the house with it on your shoes. It isn’t valuable just sitting there in the ground. It is only after the potter has done his work that the clay becomes desirable at all.
Clay is soft and squishy. It can be molded into any shape and stamped with any impression at all. All kinds of outside forces affect what the clay becomes. The potter uses all kinds of tools to make the clay into the vessel he can use best. Until it is fired, that clay is still pliable. It can be changed into something else. It can be molded by another to use for a different purpose.
The firing changes the clay. It makes the clay hard, permanent, unchanging. We certainly don’t enjoy the heat and discomfort that comes with the fire, but it is necessary so that our maker’s stamp is permanently upon us. Until we experience the fire, we don’t realize how permanent his love is. When he walks through those tough times with us, we know that we bear his mark forever.
It isn’t a perfect analogy. None is. But it does make me think about God and how he is making me into the woman He wants me to be. Every time I feel the heat, I want to remember that God is making His eternalimpression on my life.