O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
– Jeremiah 18:6
What potent imagery. At the beginning of this chapter, God’s word comes to Jeremiah and says, “Go down to the potter’s house and there I’ll let you hear my words”. So Jeremiah goes down to the potter’s house, and he sees the potter working at his wheel. And the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand. And he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. That’s the language of Jeremiah 18:1–4.
Jeremiah 18:6 shows the beauty of surrender to God’s design.
So then the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah in verse five and verse six says, “Can I not do with you as this potter has done? Like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand”.
See your life this way today. See God as the Potter, the Master Creator, and your life as clay in his hand. And trust his fingers at work. Trust his ways in your life. He is working right now for your good. He’s making you. He’s molding you. So don’t resist him. Be moldable in his hands that he might make you into what he has designed for you, desires you to be as his child. He loves you. He’s not making you into something bad. He’s making you into something good.
So trust in him today. Just see, no matter what’s going on in your life right now, no matter what may happen in the days to come. See yourself as clay in the potter’s hand and let him do whatever he desires to do to mold you into his image, into the image of Jesus, ultimately for your good.
Jeremiah 18:6 teaches us to surrender to the refining hands of the Lord.
This is what Romans 8:28–30 means when it talks about God working all things together. God molding, to use this language from Jeremiah 18, all things together for your good. So God, we praise you as clay in your hand right now. Help us to see ourselves this way, and we pray you and mold us however you desire to mold us, Lord, that you would refine us, remake us, sanctify us, purify us.
Lord, make us beautiful. Make us wonderful in your image. Make us more like Jesus. We pray that everything we’re walking through right now in our lives, everything we go through today… God, we want to look more like Jesus tomorrow than we do today. We know that’s your will for us. So we pray as clay in your hand. Do that work in us today, we pray. And then do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next day.
And God, we pray you’d forgive us for the ways we so often work against you, fight against you, resist your work in our lives. God help us to trust you, to yield to you, to rest in you, just to be moldable clay in your hands. And God, even as we pray, that we pray according to your Word, we know you’ve commanded us to make disciples of all the nations. So mold us into disciple makers of the nations, whatever that you want that to look like in our lives… The way we pray, the way we use our resources, the way we spread the gospel, and live to build up your church and spread the gospel today. God, we pray that you would mold us into disciple makers of the nations.
Prayer for the Kapali People
And along those lines, God, we pray right now for the Kapali people of India. God, we intercede for this people group of half a million men, women, children in India and Bangladesh. God, we pray that the Kapali people would be reached with the good news of your love, that they might be remade, that the sinful nature in them might be restored by your grace, the redemption that’s possible in Jesus, in your hands to become your children forever. God, may it be so. We pray over the Kapali people of India, even as we pray for your molding in our lives. We pray all that according to your Word, which we love in Jeremiah 18:6. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
