The Potter’s Vessel

MORNING PRAISE | October 7, 2019 (Monday)

The Potter’s Vessel | Jeremiah 18:1-6

PERSONAL REFLECTION

It’s been almost three months since we started our Arvisu journey, and I must admit that there are many things I miss in what JP would call my “secular life.” Mostly I miss having full control of the world I am in. I guess that’s bound to happen when one accumulates years and years of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. I thought this was an ideal scenario but realized it is not. Because I've drowned in the idea that I am enough; that I don’t really need anyone, or sometimes anything.  

My prayer life then did not involve any petitions. My prayers were mostly prayers of gratitude for the resources that God had given me so generously. There were times, I must admit, when I would tell God that there is nothing more I could ask for, and that I am okay if He would choose to take me away from this world. There were days when I actually looked forward to that. 

Arvisu House, I found out, would be a totally different story. Sure, my first few weeks was a continuation of my old, grateful self: full of gratitude that after twelve years, I’d end up as a candidate after all. But the succeeding ones dragged me to a place of great discomfort: coming face to face with personal issues I had been evading for a long time, my struggles with academics, the challenges of community life, and the imminence of my prayer life turning dry.

But then there is grace still: because through these difficulties, I am seeing something I haven’t seen for a really long time: a Sandy that surrenders; a Sandy that recognizes that there are things beyond his control; a Sandy that actually begs God for his grace. The past few weeks have been difficult, uncomfortable, and at times painful. But I would like to believe that this pain is a pain that comes with personal growth. This pain comes from the breaking of my old self — a breaking of myself that is necessary so that God can form me accordingly.

In today’s selected reading, the prophet Jeremiah observes that whenever the vessel of clay that the potter was making turned out badly in his hand, he tried again, making another vessel of whatever sort he pleased. And then God tells him: “Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done? Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand.”

This gives me great comfort – not just because God himself wants to take me in His hands and form me into a worthy vessel that would make Him happy; more so because he also does not give up on me, and makes sure that I do not stay in my disfigured state. I maybe as stubborn as clay that had been hardened by time; I may have resisted the gentle sculpting of His hands in my life in the past; but still He persists and tries to make a new vessel using the spoils of my old self.

Being in the potter’s hands as He molds me into a new and better vessel is painful. But then I do trust the Lord, and so I submit myself to this process; hopeful that when he is done molding me, I can be the vessel of clay that He wants me to be.