Winston Salem church of Christ

              A couple is shopping in an antique store.  Spotting an exceptional tea cup, they asked   “May we see that?  We’ve never seen a cup quite so beautiful.”
             The Lady handed the Tea Cup to them and tied to the handle was a note and it read…              “I have not always been a tea-cup… There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay. My master took me and rolled me pounded and patted me over and over and I yelled out, “Don’t do that.  I don’t like it! Leave me alone,” but he only smiled, and gently said; “Not yet!!”
“Then WHAM!  I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. ‘Stop it!  I’m getting so dizzy! I’m going to be sick!’, I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, quietly; ’Not yet.’   He spun me and poked and prodded and bent me out of shape to suit himself and then… Then he put me in the oven.  I never felt such heat.  I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door. “Help! Get me out of here!” I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head from side to side, ‘Not yet’.
“When I thought I couldn’t bear it another minute, the door opened. He carefully took me out and put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. Oh, that felt so good!  “Ah, this is much better,” I thought.   But, after I cooled he picked me up and he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. ‘Oh, please; Stop it, Stop it!!’ I cried. He only shook his head and said. ‘Not yet!’  Then suddenly he put me back in to the oven.   Only it was not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I just knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried.   I was convinced I would never make it. I was ready to give up.  Just then the door opened and he took me out and again placed me on the shelf, where I cooled and waited — and waited, wondering, what’s he going to do to me next? An hour later he handed me a mirror and said ‘Look at yourself.’ And I did. I said, That’s not me; that couldn’t be me.  It’s beautiful.  I’m beautiful!”‘
Quietly he spoke: “I want you to remember, then,’ he said, ‘I know it hurt to be rolled and pounded and patted, but had I just left you alone, you’d have dried up.  I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn’t put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn’t done that, you never would have hardened.  You would not have had any color in your life. If I hadn’t put you back in that second
oven, you wouldn’t have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you.”
God knows what He’s doing [for each of us]. He is the potter, and we are His clay. He will mold us and make us, and expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect will.
So when life seems hard, and you are being pounded and patted and pushed almost beyond endurance; when your world seems to be spinning out of control; when you feel like you are in a fiery furnace of trials; when life seems to “stink”, try this….  
Brew a cup of your favorite tea in your prettiest tea cup, sit down and think on this story and then, have a little talk with the Potter.  (Author Unknown) This apt fable of a lump of clay arguing with its potter, although anonymous as to the crafter of this specific article, is not formed upon an anonymous story itself.  God is often spoken of as a Potter through His Holy Spirit to His prophets. These O.T. prophets spoke several times of God as a potter, and people as clay.  You and I are the clay.  There are lessons for us to learn as seen in the above illustration.  For now, let’s also look at the specific verses:· Isa.29:16 – You turn things around! Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay, That what is made would say to its maker, “He did not make me”; Or what is formed say to him who formed it, “He has no understanding”? Much of life is spent backwards.  Too many people – including us believers at times – have things turned around.  Our priorities are not proper!  Our Lord is not leading!  Our pot is cracked!  We are turned around and turned upside down!  We are headed in the wrong direction.  Even religion is often outside in, instead of inside out, trying to change and mold by rules and regulations without first molding the heart.  When we follow our own wisdom instead of God’s, aren’t we – the clay – saying we are equal to God – the Potter?  When we mold God into our image instead of being molded into His – are we not denying He made us?  Are we the Potter, or are we the clay?· Isa.45:9 “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker–An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’? Have you ever had an argument with God?  True, not too often do we consciously argue with God.  But when we choose to disobey…what are we doing?· Isa.64:8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand. Now this is the attitude we are to have!  God made us.  Why?  Are we living for His purpose? Jeremiah has two chapters where the illustration is used and expanded (Jer.18-19).   The point is simple.  God is the Potter; we are the clay. Where are we in this process of being molded by God?  Are we yet to the point where we are beautiful?Perry D. Hall