The Potter’s Invitation
In the prophet Jeremiah’s vision, God leads him to the workshop of a potter. He watches as clay spins on the wheel, taking form under steady hands. Sometimes the shape collapses, sometimes it needs to be pressed down and started again, but the potter never discards the clay. Instead, it is patiently reshaped into something new. This image is not one of rigid control, but of invitation. God is not forcing us into rigid beliefs; God is inviting us into transformation, a collaboration between divine love and human openness.
Our Psalm for Sunday offers a complementary truth: God already knows us through and through, every hidden corner of our being. To be “wonderfully made” is to be rooted in God’s creative love from the beginning. But being wonderfully made does not mean we are finished. Like clay on the wheel, we remain works in progress, continually shaped by the choices we make, the challenges we encounter, and the willingness we bring to God’s artistry.
That willingness matters. To come to the wheel with open hands instead of clenched fists is not passive surrender. It is one of the most active choices we can make. To say yes to God’s shaping is to trust love more than fear, to trust that even when we do not know the outcome, the hands that hold us are steady and good.
This kind of trust changes how we understand resilience. The world often tells us that strength is about becoming harder: building walls, defending ourselves, and never yielding. But clay reveals a different wisdom. Clay that hardens too quickly becomes brittle and breaks. Clay that remains pliable, however, can bend and be reshaped even after damage. True resilience is found not in rigidity but in flexibility.
Jesus showed us this countercultural strength. Betrayal, injustice, and even death came against him, yet he did not harden. He stayed open: to love, to forgiveness, and to the possibility of life beyond death. His strength was not in resistance to change, but in the willingness to let God’s love flow through him, no matter what the cost. That is the strength we are invited to share.
The metaphor of clay on the potter’s wheel allows us to accept that we are still being formed. The psalmist’s words remind us of our sacred worth, yet also point us toward the mystery of our becoming. We are not museum pieces, untouchable and complete. We are living art, shaped by God’s ongoing work in and through us. Each season of life, whether joyful or difficult, adds texture, depth, and beauty to the masterpiece we are becoming.
The good news is that we are never discarded by God. Even when we resist the invitation to love others, even when we crack or collapse under pressure, the potter begins again. The love that formed us at the beginning of our lives is ready to shape us once more. To trust that love is to place our lives on the wheel again and again, confident that whatever shape emerges will bear the imprint of God’s grace.
The wheel spins, the hands are steady, and the invitation remains before us. Will we remain soft enough to be shaped? Will we let ourselves be remade, not once but continually? To live this way is to discover that we are wonderfully made, not as finished
products, but as beautifully unfinished masterpieces, gloriously
becoming what God dreams for us to be.
Kevin+
