The Potter
By Jamie Hoyt
© Copyright 2001
I use this illustrative story as a creative way to share my testimony as a part of my life. I hope you are encouraged by it. "My Beliefs", was an essay I wrote my senior year in high school. The assignment was to write who you think you are, your belief system, and what you think your purpose in life was.
There once was a potter who loved doing what he did. He was so compassionate with his work and never wasted his time making anything that didn't have value. He was working on a new masterpiece. He wanted it to be extra special. After lots of time and dedication to his work, he created the most beautiful, fragile, and delicate, vase and placed it on the shelf. This vase endured years of hardships and dangerous journeys. Over time, it started to crack and chip. Through the years, the cracks got bigger and spread. People kept picking it up and handling it in it's delicate condition, making the damage that has all ready been done to it worse. When it was getting put down, it wasn't put down properly, so it slipped off the shelf and broke. When it was on the floor and broken, someone came along and taped it back together. Over time, the pieces started to chip back off again, little by little. As they were chipping off, someone else came along and glued the pieces together. Then one day, someone came along and just smacked it to the ground. The pieces were shattered everywhere. This once beautiful vase was broken all into pieces on the floor. The potter, seeing his work and how broken it was, couldn't let the pieces go to waste. Knowing how beautiful his creation was he couldn't just throw them away just because of the time and investment he spent making it the first time. So, he picked up all the pieces, wet them down back into clay, and started to mold it again. When he was done, he set it back on the shelf, stepped back and looked at it. What he saw was something special. It was so magnificent and new looking. It was so much more beautiful than the first one that was made. Out of the same clay came a different vase. This time it was made stronger then the first. And every time it got knocked down and chipped ,after that, the potter would just pick it up and remold it again. The turnout was it being more stronger and especially more beautiful than the last.
Just in case you're going huh? It goes like this: We were made in the image of God. He made us. He is the potter, we are the clay. Sometimes things in our lives don't always go into our plan. We fall, we stumble, we chip, we scratch, and we break. Sometimes, someone comes along and knocks us off the shelf and sometimes it's just us being human and our own mistakes that push us off the shelf. Sometimes we try to get "other things" to fix our problems. Our even "other people". But the scars still show when we don't let the potter do his job and we break again. So we have to let God do his work and "remold" us again. It's a painful process getting "wetted down" again, but the end result is spectacular. We are still the same, but in a different image. God never just sweeps us up and throws us away. He "sweeps us up and changes us. He does this because He loves us. Because of the investment, time, and work He has put into us. He cares about us too much to just "throw us away."
"He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
-Phillipians 1:6
"Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand."
-Isaiah 64:8
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My Beliefs
God created the earth in 6 days. First came the heavens and the earth. Then it was light and darkness, the sky, vegetation, evening and morning, living creatures, and finally man. On the 7th day he rested. Coming back to man, From the bible, Genesis 1:27, 28 says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created him. God blessed him and said to him 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." In Genesis 2:20-23 says, "So man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused man to fall into a deep sleep: and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place of the flesh. Then the Lord God made a women out of the rib he took out of man. And he brought her to the man, then the man said, 'This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called women for she's taken out of man. So the original purpous was to be a companion to men whenever that "right one" should come along.
I see myself and my body as just a shell. The life that I'm living now is only temporary. On how I believe I was formed as a human, I came from a divine order vs. a monkey or a fish with legs crawling out of the sea. From there it is man's choice to follow the original calling and intent of this divine being. Which was to follow his lead and give him credit while praising him. In English terms This God with a capital "G" who rules and knows everything and anything.
I believe God has a plan for everyone. It is that persons choice to follow it. I am trusting myself to a divine being who knows me, and for me to be in harmony with him. In return I know I'll have a long fulfilling life by trusting myself in him. I'm being guided to and inward intuition that this is the right path as an individual: so that I may develop talents of personality and abilities to be a fulfilling productive human being to contribute to society. As I'm in a place of development, society develops as well. I'm trusting in a higher being, knowing I can advance to a higher quality and have a fulfilling life and sense of security to trust God and to obey him.
The theme of the book of Genesis in the bible is, "Everything begins with God, who elects a people of his own". Everything begins with God. Then from there it's up to that person on who they give credit to, i.e. God, themselves, evil, or even an idol. I choose to give my credit, my stature, my talents, my abilities, and most importantly, my life to God. I am merely a servant, a vessel for him to work through. I also see him as my friend and guide.
Like I said before, I see myself and my body as just a shell. My life is an image that will one day reveal itself when I am united with God and other followers of him. That's what my life is all about. And in the end as my reward for living for God, I will be with him in the end when eternity begins.
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