Bible Reading for August 11 – Jeremiah 18-22

“Have Thine own way, Lord! Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.” That’s what we sing, and that’s what Jeremiah urges us to recognize in chapter 18 of his prophecy. But what exactly does that mean for us?

In the first place, it requires us to admit that God is completely in charge of everything that happens to us, sovereign over all the events of life that combine to shape our personal character and experience. It means recognizing that God has just as much control over our lives as a potter has over the lump of wet clay spinning on his wheel, free to make a bowl, a vase, a cup or a jug – whatever he pleases (Jeremiah 18:4). When we sing, “Mold me and make me after Thy will,” we are surrendering ourselves to God’s desires, “yielded and still.”

But as Jeremiah points out, this control extends not just to individuals, but to nations. For in reality, God has just as much control over all the great events of history as He does over what happens to each of us as individuals. God can indeed decide to build up a kingdom or He can choose to pull it down (Jeremiah 18:7,9).

So, why does God make the choices He does? Where it comes to kingdoms, He promises that those who turn from their evil ways will be blessed, and those that refuse to obey His voice will experience calamity (Jeremiah 18:8-11). And so the only reasonable thing for all of us to do is to hear God’s call to yield to His authority and majesty, to turn back to Him and reform our ways and our deeds according to His Word and His will (Jeremiah 18:11).

For the fact is that ceramics cannot be molded and reshaped forever. Eventually the potter’s creation must be baked in a kiln, so that the clay becomes dry and hard enough to be useful. But if we, as either individuals or cultures, become hardened in our disobedience and rebellion, if we have passed the point where God can mold us and shape us, the only thing left is for us to be broken (Jeremiah 19:1, 10), just as a useless, cracked pot is shattered and cast aside.

The people of Jeremiah’s day were so far gone in idolatry and oppression that God had to take drastic action, destroying their kingdom and sending only a small remnant of them into exile (Jeremiah 19:7, 15). Let’s surrender ourselves to the Potter before it’s too late.

Jeremiah 18:1-11 (NASB)

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying,
2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I shall announce My words to you.”
3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel.
4 But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me saying,
6 “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
7 “At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it;
8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.
9 “Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it;
10 if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.
11 “So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds.”‘