Jars of clay.

Perhaps, what keeps us continually filling our big, white bowls with Things is fear. Perhaps, what utterly terrifies us, is looking into our own big, white bowls and seeing... nothing inside. Nothing inside, but an empty echo, a shadow of what ought to be, instead of a reverberating assurance, a glimpse into heavenly lights, a taste of God.

Perhaps, what keeps us filling our bowls obsessively, thoughtlessly, unconsciously, is the fact that deep down, we weren't even happy with our own bowls to begin with.

Why am I a white bowl? Why don't I have intricate patterns carved on me? Why don't I have handles, or a spout, or a varnished coat?

The other bowls all around us seem to have them, and we shrink back in dismay and disgust at own empty existence, wondering if some sort of an ugly mistake were made.

"Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it,

'He did not make me'?

Can the pot say of the potter,

'He knows nothing'?"

-Isaiah 29:16b

So we shake angry fists at heaven, and seek to fill the emptiness inside. We fill ourselves with Things, to increase our worth- for how could the Potter make such a mistake? We buy more, hoard more and do more, till our bowls are filled to the brim with Things and no longer have space for God. Filled with pride and self-sufficiency, our Potter breaks us into a million potsherds to remind us of the value of humility, of our human frailty and vulnerability. For we forget, that we are, for all we are, only but clay.

"Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,

to him who is but a potsherd among potsherds on the ground.

Does the clay say to the potter,

'What are you making?'

Does your work say,

'He has no hands?'

-Isaiah 45:9

For our Potter needs no help at all. He made no mistake at the beginning. We were made the way we were meant to be made- in this size, this shape, with this heart, mind and spirit. With these invisible qualities for a Very Special Purpose indeed. And it is only when we trust the skill of our Potter, acknowledge his workmanship, that we can truly come to love, accept and cherish ourselves, to fulfill the destinies we were meant to fulfil.

"Yet O God, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
We are all the work of your hand.
- Isaish 64:8

On the Grand Table on the night of the final banquet, are bowls, cups, saucers and platters- all of which have a different look, function and purpose for that beautiful event.

Sometimes, in the moulding process, we just can't see how a silly, empty bowl could be of any use at all. Beat and slapped about by the Potter's hands, carved painfully by a knife, and thrown into the furnace, the moulding process is simply too great for us to bear!

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay

to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

We are hard-pressed on every side but not crushed,

perplexed bit not in despair;

persecuted but not abandoned;

struck down but not destroyed."

- 2 Cor 4:7-9

And perhaps we forget, that what we are on the outside hardly matters as much as what is put inside of us in the first place.

"We always carry around in our body the death of God,

so that the life of God

may also be revealed in our body. "
-2 Cor 4:10

What do you see when you look into your own big, clay white bowl? Have not all of us, at some point, wished we were a big glass jug, or a china teapot, or a pretty vase instead?

Do not forget, that our Potter knows best. He made each of us, exactly the way we were meant to be, through the furnaces we were meant to go through, for a special purpose.

"For we are God's workmanship...

created to do good works,

which God prepared in advance for us to do..."

- Ephesians 2:10

God's workmanship. In Hebrew, it means masterpiece.

And maybe, it is when we finally accept that, that we can stop filling ourselves with Things. For when we look into our jars of clay, we can, though we cannot see Him, be filled with the assurance that such a Big God fills every part of that space we own within.


And then we shall stop filling ourselves with Things, and oh, what joy that shall bring.

If thou could'st empty all thyself of self,

Like to a shell dishabited

Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,

And say, "This is not dead,"

And fill thee with HImself instead.

But thou art replete with very thou

And hast such shrewd activity,

That when He comes He says, "This is enow

Unto itself - 'twere better let it be,

It is so small and full, there is no room for Me."

-Sir Thomas Browne