Some years ago, in Calcutta, India, an old woman sold milk tea on a sidewalk, along a busy street. Her stand was a block or so from the Salvation Army Youth Hostel, and on the way to Mother Theresa’s home for the dying. Many of the young folks staying at the hostel would also visit the home, to offer help or just to see it. On their way, these visitor often stopped for milk tea.
The old woman poured the tea into cups that looked a bit like small bowls. These cups were made from clay. They had no glaze on them, rather just a the rough, porous surface.
An old man sitting near the woman made the clay cups. He’d gather a handful of wet clay, crudely form them into the tiny bowls, and put them next to a fire, which hardened the clay. Once hard, they were ready for use.
Once a customer was finished drinking the tea, the cup was thrown next to the old man’s pile of clay. Every so often, as needed, the old man would crush the used clay cups, add some water to it, and put it in his pile of clay. It was the ultimate recycling program.
It’s hard not to think about Bible verses comparing us to vessels made of clay, and our Heavenly Father as the Master Potter. Yet there is a crucial difference between the old man and woman selling mild tea and our Creator.
The milk tea sellers illustrate the way the world so often sees human beings—GOD’s creation: Unfinished and useless, discarded and reformed into more useless creatures.
We who are Believers in Jesus know that in our life as sojourners on Earth we often feel like those milk tea cups. We feel rough, crudely formed. We feel like we’ve been set in into flames and hardened. We feel used, discarded, broken. In Jesus we are never simply discarded, thrown into a pile with broken pieces. Once our time is complete on Earth we are transformed into a finished product, glazed and beautiful—we will be like The Master Potter.
We will be in our true and permanent home, then. We will be in a settled place with King Jesus in His Kingdom.
Jeremiah 18 This is the message that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Jeremiah, go down to the potter’s house. I will give you my message there.”
3 So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working with clay at the wheel. 4 He was making a pot from clay. But there was something wrong with the pot. So the potter used that clay to make another pot. With his hands he shaped the pot the way he wanted it to be.
5 Then this message from the Lord came to me: 6 “Family of Israel, you know that I can do the same thing with you. You are like the clay in the potter’s hands, and I am the potter.” This message is from the Lord. 7 “There may come a time when I will speak about a nation or a kingdom that I will pull up by its roots or tear down and destroy it. 8 But if the people of that nation change their hearts and lives and stop doing evil things, I will change my mind and not bring on them the disaster I planned. 9 There may come another time when I speak about a nation that I will build up or plant. 10 But if I see that nation doing evil things and not obeying me, I will think again about the good I had planned to do for them.
11 “So, Jeremiah, say to the people of Judah and those who live in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am the potter preparing troubles for you and making plans against you. So stop doing the evil things you are doing. Each person must change and start doing good.’ 12 But the people of Judah will answer, ‘We don’t care what you say. We will continue to do what we want. We will do the evil our stubborn hearts want.’”
LORD Bless, Keep, Shine. . .
Jonah’s Song 