The Potter's Clay

•    Why do you think God uses clay and not other materials?
-->  Clay is a kind of soil; we humans are created from dust of the ground [Gen 2: 7]

•    What does the clay symbolizes?
-->Life, character, heart and basically almost everything!

•    But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. [verse 4]
--> When comes into shaping and molding, there is none expert other than our God. God created us, the ultimate being to reign over life forms [Gen 1: 26].--> the potter [God] has to work patiently and carefully with his clay so that He will be able to make vessels of many designs [character] and for many uses [His purposes]. However, sometimes the clay became marred as it took shape in the potter’s hand. When that happened, the potter reworked the clay and starts to mold it again.

•    He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. [verse 6]
-->  God is trying to remind us that our clay [lives, characters, careers] in His hands. God is asking us to entrust the “clays” into His hands.
-->Sometimes we are stubborn where we refuse to let God to change our live. We refused to be molded instead trying to use our own strength to mold ourselves when the potter tries to shape us into a useful vessel. If he is unable to mold us into the person He desire, we will be as useless as a lump of clay.

•    If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed,  and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned [verse 7 & 8]

-->When you repent from the evil, wicked and sinful ways, God will hold His punishment. If allow God to change us, God will slowly mold you over time [verse 3]…Do you see the love and patience of God?

•    “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the LORD says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’ [verse 11]

--> we harden our hearts to the 'molding' of God, we will become too hard to even change, that's when God will have no choice but to need to step in and break us by setting trials for us,so that we can become soft again. It’s a painful process and we often question God why such disaster befall us, but it is because God wants to shape us in a better character and the old one is too stubborn and insensitive. So have a submissive heart only then God will be able to start to work on us to make us more like Him. Not to cry over mistakes and sins done, but let those bumps and cracks in a piece of pottery to be worked by our potter to smoothen the lumps and bumps. Don’t see trials as problems, but another opportunity for God to make us a strong and durable vessel.

Conclusion
•    Our life is like a clay in the hands of a potter and many times we fail to realize that God is shaping us to have a better character, the lesson is to help people to be submissive and sensitive to the workings of God in our lives.
•    Analogy of forming clay products.
•    so always be sensitive to God and allow Him to shape our lives, let God bring us through in this process of molding and do not resist Him.