play-doh

One of my favorite art classes that I took in college was in ceramics. I guess the main reason was the chance to learn how to mold clay into a piece of art. There was always a fascination at a young age with being able to make a recognizable object out of a lump of clay.....mainly play-doh. But, here was a chance to learn how to mold clay......real clay. I would even get a chance to "throw" a pot on a wheel. (That's just some artist lingo to make you think I knew what I was doing) It was thrill for me to sit at the wheel with a lump of clay in the center and using a combination of force and control to begin the process of creating a pot/vase. Whether it would have any real use would be revealed after it was fired and glazed.

I always think about that ceramics class and "throwing" pots when I read in the scriptures how we are described as clay in the hands of the potter. And, I can see how we are that lump of clay until God takes us and places us on His wheel to mold us and shape us into what He wants us to be. Just like an artist, He has a plan on what He needs to do to make us useful for Him. I know it seems like it is all up to God how this all will turn out, and in the area of art, the clay is pretty much totally controlled by the potter. Once it is on the wheel, it stays there till the potter is finished. This is where the difference is.

It takes quite a bit of force for the potter to turn a lump of clay into a piece of art. Sometimes, it takes a lot of force for God to turn us into His piece of art. The difference in us and the clay is that, when we feel like it is too much force; too hard on us; too difficult for us; too painful to bear....we choose to get off of the wheel.

Oh....for the strength to stay on the wheel and allow the Creator to finish what He has started in us; to feel His hands as they shape and mold us from the inside out; to feel His force on our lives as He lifts us higher and higher...... making us His work of art.

People will be able to look at us and know that we are His because we were willing to stay on the wheel.