"I watched a primitive potter at work in Pakistan. Nothing I had ever been told ever revealed to me half so clearly exactly what is meant by the phrase, “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”
This aged craftsman, with deeply lined face, stooped shoulders and delicate, sensitive hands, welcomed my missionary companion and me to his little shabby shop…
Inside the shop the words from Jeremiah 18:2 came home to me clearly: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.”
In sincerity and earnestness I asked the old master craftsman to show me every step in the creation of a masterpiece…crooking a bony finger toward me, he led the way to a small, dark, closed shed at the back of this shop. When he opened its rickety door, a repulsive, overpowering stench of decaying matter engulfed me. For a moment I stepped back from the edge of the gaping dark pit in the floor of the shed. “This is where the work begins!” he said, kneeling down beside the black, nauseating hole. With his long, thin arm, he reached down into the darkness. His slim, skilled fingers felt around amid the lumpy clay, searching for a fragment of material exactly suited to his task.
Finally his knowing hands brought up a lump of dark mud from the horrible pit where the clay had been tramped and mixed for hours by his hard, bony feet.
With tremendous impact the first verses from Psalm 40 came to my heart. In a new and suddenly illuminating way I saw what the psalmist meant when he wrote long ago, “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay.” As carefully as the potter selected his clay, so God used special care in choosing me.
As the potter gently patted the ugly lump of mud in his hands into a round ball of earth… He walked, clay in hand, over to where a huge, round slab of stone stood in the center of his shop. With meticulous precision, he placed the lump of earth exactly in the center of his wheel. The care he took in this apparently simple step astounded me. But it was necessary before he set the stone in motion with clay whirling at its center.
Again the word of the Lord came through clearly to my heart from Psalm 40:2, “(He) set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.”
Just as the potter took special pains to center the clay on the stone wheel, so God exercises very particular care in centering my life in Christ…I too was bit of earth in the Master’s hands, and He was at work molding my life.
When the old potter settled himself on his wobbly little wooden stool before the stone, something impressed me enormously. It was the peculiar, fascinating look that crept across his lined face. A new light filled his eyes. Somehow I could sense that in the crude, shapeless fragment of earth between his hands, he already saw a vase or goblet of exquisite from and beauty. There was in this clod of crude clay enormous possibilities! The very thought seemed thrill him. Out of this bit of mud would emerge a unique bit of beauty as his will was impressed upon it. His intentions, his wishes, his purpose for it were that it might become a handsome, useful article, like those other pieces of beautiful china that adorned his shelves.
And God’s gentle Spirit spoke to me softly but surely in that dimly lit little shop, saying, “Don’t you see how much anticipation and excitement fills your Father’s heart as He looks on you and holds you in His hand? If only His will can be done in your life-in this bit of earth-a bit of heaven can be produced in your life.”
The old gentleman began to whirl the wheel gently…As the stone gathered momentum, I was taken in memory to Jeremiah 18:3. “Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.”
But what stood out most before my mind at this point was the fact that beside the potter’s stool, on either side of him, stood two basins of water. Not once did he touch the clay, now spinning swiftly at the center of the wheel, without first dipping his hands in the water…it was fascinating to see how swiftly but surely the clay responded to the pressure applied to it through those moistened hands. Silently, smoothly, the form of a graceful goblet began to take shape beneath those hands. The water was the medium through which the master craftsman’s will and wishes were being transmitted to the clay…
For me this was a most moving demonstration of the simple, yet mysterious truth that my Father’s will and wishes are expressed and transmitted to me through the water of His own Word. For though I may sense that He holds me in His own wondrous hands, and though I may be aware that those same strong, skilled hands are shaping my character and guiding my career, still His will and wishes are conveyed and transmitted to me always through the medium of His Word…
Suddenly, as I watched, to my utter astonishment, I saw the stone stop. Why? I looked closely. The potter removed a small particle of grit from the goblet. His fingers had felt its resistance to his touch. He started the stone again. Quickly he smoothed the surface of the goblet. Then just as suddenly the stone stopped again. He removed another hard object-another tiny grain of sand-that left a scar in the side of the clay…
Suddenly he stopped the stone again. He pointed disconsolately to a deep, ragged gouge that cut and scarred the goblet’s side. It was ruined beyond repair! In dismay he crushed it down beneath his hands, a formless mass of mud laying in a heap upon the stone.
Why was this rare and beautiful masterpiece ruined in the master’s hands? Because he had run into resistance. It was like a thunderclap of truth bursting about me!
Why is my Father’s will-His intention to turn out truly beautiful people-brought to nougat again and again? Because of their resistance, because of their hardness. Why, despite His best effort and endless patience with human beings, do they end up a disaster? Simply because they resist His will, they will not cooperate, they will not comply with His commands. His hands-those tender, gentle, gracious hands-are thwarted by our stubborn wills.
In dismay I turned to my missionary friend and asked him in a hoarse whisper, “What will the potter do now?” The question was passed on. Looking up at me through eyes now clouded and sad he replied with a sorrowful shrug of his tired old shoulders, “Just make a crude finger bowl from the same lump.”
The stone started whirl again. Swiftly, deftly, and in short order a plain little finger bowl was shaped on the wheel. What might have been a rare and gorgeous goblet was now only a peasant’s finger bow. It was certainly second best. This was not the craftsman’s first or finest intention, rather, just an afterthought. A bit of earth, a piece of clay that might have graced a nobleman’s mansion was now destined to do menial service in some beggar’s hovel…
The sobering, searching, searing question I had to ask myself in the humble surroundings of that simple potter’s shed was this: Am I going to be a piece of fine china or just a finger bowl? Is my life going to be a gorgeous goblet fit to hold the fine wine of God’s very life from which other can drink and be refreshed? Or am I going to be just a crude finger bowl in which passersby will dabble their fingers briefly then pass on and forget all about it?"
~ From "A Laymen Looks At The Lord’s Prayer", by W. Phillip Keller, Pages 89-95
