Spoiled and Reworked… in the Potter’s Hand

For my friends at the Soul Care Institute, with gratitude

And the vessel 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.

Jeremiah 18:4

“We don’t get just one chance to learn something.”

This is how Stephen W. Smith begins Day 3 in his transformational guide, 30 Days with the Potter.

His words are helping me make sense of this season of leadership in my life. I thought I knew who I was, who the Potter formed me to be. Storms came, pressures of the mind, soul, and body, and I charged through, sword in hand, shield up, Jesus present. Eyes on the prize.

But in recent months, in every moment of silence, my soul’s plaintive cry rises sonorant and singular in its plea.

I’ve lost myself.

I’ve grown weary on the inside. I’ve become robotic, formulaic in my service and care for others. Outwardly, I’ve been achieving, executing, accomplishing much. Inwardly, I’ve been diminishing like the bright colors of a rainbow I watched slowly fade and disappear after a storm this week.

Yet I am a leader of others, responsible to care, to nourish, to love, to serve. Aren’t leaders supposed to have arrived? To have been chosen for the task because they were capable?

My trusty formulas, the strength of past leadership seasons, the knowledge and books, aren’t sustaining me anymore. Jesus is calling, calling me still deeper to Himself, to the one my soul loves. And there, I suspect, I will find myself again.

Stephen Smith, Kaylene Derksen, and their colleagues at the Soul Care Institute understand leaders need spiritual transformation, too. The great gift they offer, the marvelous invitation, is that even seasoned leaders, perhaps especially seasoned leaders, can still learn something new. Can grow again. Can even be reworked into another vessel, as it seems good to the Potter to do.

The spoiling, the reworking, all happen as we remain in the Potter’s hands.

This truth is especially precious to me right now as I spin, squished and smashed, sticky, on the Potter’s wheel while He works on me.

I sat with Jesus for a long time thinking about this today. I read and re-read Jeremiah’s words from the Potter’s house. I listened for my Potter’s words to me. My kind and wise Teacher gave me a picture.

I saw in my mind’s eye a large clay salad bowl, a symbol of me, the vessel I have been. But now, in the hands of the Potter, that vessel was broken, severely reduced, reshaped, and reworked into a tiny bottle. A perfume flask.

A thought pierced my mind with crystal clarity:

You are reducing my capacity, yet increasing the concentration of what I contain, like choice perfume. 

Praise to our God who sees fit to rework us, who loves us so much He will dash us to pieces with a new and beautiful purpose in mind.

Are you being severely reduced in this season? Or, like a salad bowl, are you being shaped and expanded to hold much?

Whatever season you find yourself in, let the Potter spoil and rework you as it seems good to Him to do. #spiritualtransformation Share on X

He can be trusted; this I know.

This is my prayer today:

Spoil me in your hands, dear Lord. Rework me as it seems good to You. Then pour me out, a sweet fragrance for others, to Your glory. Amen.

@audreycfrank

Photo by Philipp Torres on Unsplash