When I was in college, I often went to the campus ceramics center to relax from my studies by crafting earthenware dishes, vases, and other vessels. I would take a lump of clay and throw it down several times on a hard surface to remove any air bubbles that could explode when the pottery was fired in the kiln. Throwing the clay also softened it and made it easier to shape on the wheel. If I discovered a hard lump or a hidden air pocket while manipulating the clay, I would smash the project down and begin again.

After hand-molding the spinning wet clay into its intended form, I would relax my grip and set my work aside to be dried, decorated, and finally baked in the fiery furnace, where a transformation takes place. The clay, once nothing more than wet mud, experiences an internal structural change that gives it a hardened crystalline permanence that can never be reversed.

With a fresh vision, Jeremiah watched the potter fashion an ordinary, everyday vessel. As the potter shaped the clay, Jeremiah realized that he was looking at himself, humanity, and Israel. The turning wheel was essential for the potter to squeeze and nudge the clay into the desired product—much like how circumstances will give a particular fit or form to life. But when an imperfection was revealed, the potter remolded the clay into a new vessel. Once just slimy mud, the clay in the potter’s hand became the beginning of something elegant and permanent. And then Jeremiah saw that God is the Great Potter, with the power and skill to make the clay whatever he wants it to be, glazed with grace and beauty.