You Are Our Potter

“Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker - an earthenware vessel among the vessels of the earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing’, or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’?” Isaiah 45:9

Oh how I have been guilty of quarreling with my Maker! Countless times I have looked in the mirror and sighed of discontent, wishing I looked like someone else. My nose is bigger than so and so, and I don’t wear the same pants size as her. If I could only look just like her, then I would be perfect and happy. Why do I look this way? Who made my body that I have so many problems with?!

Oh…God did.

When I was reading the verse above, God allowed the scales to fall off my eyes and see my discontent for what it really was (and is). A quarrel with God Almighty.

Before, I thought I was just having a quarrel with myself, thinking it’s just my problem that I don’t like my knees, weight, ears, etc., but God showed me that when I detest the body He made, I am detesting Him as my Creator.

And my Creator began to teach me more.

1) I am made in the image of God. “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Gen. 1:27 If I read this and look at myself and say that there’s no way God created this, I am believing a lie, and that will effect every part of my life. The first thing God tells us about Himself is that He is the Creator of all things, including you and me. If I don’t believe that, I can’t believe anything else He says.

2) I am God’s workmanship. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Eph.2:10 Remembering that I am a work of art by God makes me careful about what I say about myself and others. Also, I should focus on what my hands are doing for God, not what they look like.

3) I am the clay, and God is the Potter. “But now, O Lord, You are our Father, we are the clay, and You are our potter; and all of us are the work of Your hands.” Isaiah 64:8 Clay can’t mold itself, it needs a potter. And God is our Potter. When He started with me I was just a clump of mud, but in His hands, He has formed me into a vessel, a vessel for Him to use. Will I let Him use me or just complain about the outside of the jar?

One thing God has reminded me: I am a temple of the Holy Spirit and am not my own. (1Cor.6:19-20) I was bought with a price and my purpose is to glorify God in my body.

And what really matters? What the temple looks like or what is on the inside? So many times I am guilty of focusing on the outside of my body rather than the inside - the heart which God sees. Jesus’s words echo in my mind, “They are like white washed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:25-28)

Psalms 100:3 “Know that the Lord Himself is God; it is He who made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”