The Work of His Hands

The other day I was walking by the television and a potter was working at her wheel with clay. I stopped for a minute to watch, thinking all the time of verse 8 in Isaiah 64. The clay started out as a glob of wet mud. It was vigorously kneaded and adjusted as it was placed on the wheel. The potter pushed the clay onto the head of the turning wheel in order to create a specific shape. Initially she was unhappy with the forming vessel and added more clay. Eventually she discarded the whole thing and started over. The clay can be reshaped as many times as required. You can add to it, take some clay away or start all over again. One thing that is very evident in watching the process is that the potter is very much in control. The clay has no say in the creation of itself into a vessel. It can make no effort to improve its own creation. Only the potter has the ability to shape, reshape, reform, change or indeed scrap the emerging vessel. In Isaiah 64: 8 we read:

8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand.

The Lord is the potter and we are the clay. He is in control every second. He creates us and is able to reshape us at any time. We are not in control. Almighty God is in control. We are but a temporary vessel.

When we consider the reality that we are the clay, we are faced with a real lesson in humility. Have you ever stopped to think what clay is? It is dust mixed with a little water. It is wet dirt. It is mud. We are the clay so we are the filthy dust and mud of the earth. When the clay has been formed and baked, we are but earthen vessels for the rest of our life on this earth. (2Cor 4:6-7)

When we consider the words, “And all we are the work of Your hand”, we find a very beautiful truth. We are the work of The Potter. We are the work of the hand of God. There is another deeper meaning in these words. The very hands that made us as a potter are the same hands that were voluntarily pierced by nails for our sake. The same hands that made us saved us! The true work of His hands was to have them nailed to a Roman cross. Jesus did this very thing for us. His work is finished. This was done for you and for me so that ordinary earthen vessels could become glorified beings in heaven with the Father and the Son. We are truly the work of His hands.

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