MY FATHER'S HANDS

 

There is a verse in Isaiah that has always captured my imagination.  It goes like this:
“And yet, O Lord, you are our Father.  We are the clay and you are the Potter.  We are all formed by your hand.”¹
I have this wonderful image of God sitting on a wooden stool with the potter’s wheel positioned between His knees.  In His hands He holds a lump of clay specially chosen by Him from which He is going to form me.
As He puts the clay onto the plate He makes sure that it is centred and then He begins to spin the wheel using His feet while both of His hands start to mould and shape the clay.
As He works He prays unceasingly.  He speaks words of love, encouragement, joy and kindness into my life.  He starts to visualise the life He wants me to live.  So much thought has gone into the making of me.  As I begin to take shape in His hands He realises that actually there is something even more special He wants for me so He kneads me back into a lump and starts again.

Once the item of pottery has been formed it is then put aside in a safe place to dry.

Once it is dry it can be painted and decorated and then it is put into an oven to bake.
A close eye has to be kept on the item while it is baking to ensure that the heat doesn’t damage it. 
We have all been created individually by God.  Some of us are plates, some cups, some bowls, some jugs – it doesn’t matter what we are - we all have two things in common.
The fact that we were created by Him and the fact that we can all hold or contain something that can be poured out.

God decided He wanted me to be a jug.  He visualised me as a beautiful jug filled to the brim and overflowing with love and the ability to do so much good in the world. In His mind there is not a blemish or a scratch on me and He has painted me inside and out with beautiful bright coloured flowers – crimson, yellow, blue, orange and green.  I am so amazingly beautiful in His eyes because I am His creation.

In fact in Ephesians 2:10 it says exactly that “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”.

For many years I felt that in making me God had got stuck on the kneading and moulding stage or had forgotten me in the oven.  I also felt that during the process of making me He became distracted and that was why I was far from perfect.

I never seemed to be able to grow into my full potential, there was always a nagging feeling inside of me that something was missing and a lot of the time I did not feel that my life had much worth or value.  There were so many times when I felt such deep hurt and pain and loneliness in my life that I was sure He had forgotten me in the oven and that I was damaged beyond repair.
I longed to make a difference in the world.  To be able to touch other people’s lives and bring comfort and healing to them but always felt that I was not worthy.

Then one day I realised that I would never be able to do any of these things if I was constantly in the process of being made.  How could I offer anything of value to anyone else if I did not feel I was worthy and complete myself.

There is a verse that says “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works so that no one can boast”.²
This is the most wonderful verse in that it takes a lot of pressure off us to perform and if we truly believed what God tells us “I am the Lord who sanctifies you”³ we wouldn’t have the need to ‘work’ so hard at being Christians!

Photograph by Carrie Sandoval
1.  Isaiah 64:8 (LAB)
2.  Ephesians 2: 8 & 9 (NIV)
3.  Exodus 31:13 (NAS)