Tag Archives: spiritual growth

Clay in the Potter’s Hands (Pt. 7)

STEP 6:  THE SECOND FIRING

With raging intensity, the second fire starts to burn through the kiln. Quickly you move from separation into a time of death. There are impurities within each clay vessel that only the fire can purge.

The Lord and His angels shut down the dampers on the kiln, cutting off the flow of oxygen and filling the kiln with carbon dioxide. Black soot along with heavy smoke and flames consumes every vessel in the kiln as it becomes a black fire, your personal Gethsemane or dark night of the soul.

Abandonment, isolation, and death itself are all around you.  The fire is so intense that you can’t hear or see the dear friends who have been your comforters and intercessors for so many years. Everyone you love seems to leave you as you die in the blazing inferno.

You say, “Lord, the fire!  I’m dying in the midst of it! Everything I’ve built and loved my whole life is being consumed!”

Your heart breaks as your reputation and your walk with the Lord are condemned. Competition, position, jealousy and pride are driven out of your life by the purifying flames.

You feel as if you’re going to explode under the ever-increasing pressure. The Lord tenderly explains, “My child, in the midst of the black fire, a mystery takes place.  Brilliant color is pushed deep into the body of the clay vessel.”

“My mysteries and My revelations are revealed in the tremendous pressure of the high glory fire.  This is a hidden time when the most beautiful colors are formed in the earthenware vessel. The richness and depth of color come from the darkest hours of agony and grief, just as diamonds, rubies, and emeralds come from hot fires inside the earth.  In the midst of the second firing, My glory is being released into the depths of who you are.”

 

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This is the hardest imaginable step to go through.  Has it ever gotten so hot you thought you were going to die?  I have.  This is a step you can only speak about in whispers because it is so intense.

Clay in the Potter’s Hands (Pt. 5)

STEP 4:  THE FIRST FIRING

Almost immediately, the Lord takes you out of the wilderness and places you in large room with other dried vessels. At first you are relieved but as the fire starts to come through the floorboards and the top of the ceiling, you panic.

The Lord has moved you from the shelf to the kiln, from the wilderness to His consuming fire.  You can sense the heat.  You can feel the relentless blaze. Perspiring yourself, you suddenly look over at the sweaty people next to you and realize you don’t even like them!

The Lord never fires just one vessel at a time.  He takes a church, a family or a group of friends and sets them on fire to expose everyone’s hearts.  In the intense heat, all the impurities of the soul come to the surface. Resentment, bitterness, anger and greed are revealed.

As the fire gets hotter the pain increases, you cry out, “Lord! Everything in my life is dying!” Relationships with family and friends become strained, you experience persecution at work, and you can’t get along with the people at church.

“God, if you love me, You’ll turn off the heat!” you complain.  But the fire continues to blaze even hotter. Finally, the doors open and the Lord removes the clay vessels and places them back on the shelves.

Now you’re actually happy to be in a hidden place.  You decide to sit in the back of the church and not give prophecies or be a part of the prayer team anymore. Oh, yes, you still raise your hands and occasionally pray for people, but you’ve become lukewarm.  When the Holy Spirit stirs your heart to give a word, you say, “No! If I give a word, others will judge me.  No, Lord, find someone else.”

For a while, God tolerates your pulling back.  Then He begins to nudge your spirit.  He says, “Are you willing to settle for this, or do you want more of Me?  Do you want to become My anointed bride?”

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Have you ever been in a place in your walk where the fire got so hot you just wanted to shrink back and rest for a while?  Silly question, I know.  I’m sure we’ve all been there.

Clay in the Potter’s Hands (Pt. 4)

STEP 2: THE POTTER’S WHEEL –

The Lord then scoops up the moistened clay with His mighty hands and places you on the Potter’s wheel.  You hear His promise: “I have measured you; I know your portion; I know what destiny I have for you. For even though the enemy would want to kill you, I tell you, I have a mission and a calling for your life!”

He begins to center you on the wheel. Slowly, His gentle hands go down into the very depths of who you are and begins to pull up the walls of your new vessel. 

While you are on the Potter’s wheel, being shaped by the hands of the Master Potter, there is a wonderful mystery taking place within you.  You are growing! It is a time of great favor and blessing.

But as you go around and around, you begin to notice that other vessels are sitting on the shelves around the Potter’s house. You want to be like them!

“Lord, I love the closeness and intimacy of Your hands,” you cry.  “But I see all of these other vessels sitting on the shelf and I want to be a part of what they’re doing!”

STEP 3: THE POTTER’S SHELF

Suddenly the Lord comes with His cutting wire and pulls you off the wheel.  Then He places you on the shelf to dry.

What a change this is from being on the wheel, where you were joyfully spinning in the hands of God!

At first, you don’t mind it too much, but after a month or two, you say, “Uh…you know, Lord, I’ve been sitting on the shelf for a long time and I’m really dry. When is my ministry going to begin?”

You remind Him over and over again, “Lord, I’ve been praying to You!”  But you don’t feel His presence. In desperation you cry, “God, where are you?  I seem to be in a dry and lonely wilderness!”

“You’re right,” He answers. “You’ve been promoted!” Surprised, you respond, “But Lord, I thought promotion was getting to start my ministry!”

In His love and wisdom He explains, “Promotion is the wilderness!  I’ve called you here so you can learn to recognize My voice.  I’m testing your heart.  I’m testing your love for Me.  Will you continue to seek My face, or will you turn away?”

When you were on the wheel, there was great intimacy between you and the Lord.  Everybody said such wonderful things about your future!  But now that you’re on the shelf, everyone seems to have forgotten you.

“Does God really have a future for my life?” you begin to wonder.  “Did He really speak those things to me?” You’ve learned all the worship songs by heart, read all the books, been to all the conferences and seminars – yet there’s a dying in your heart because you feel the Lord has forsaken you.

The worst part is that other people don’t understand.  “Why don’t you have more faith?” they ask.  They don’t understand that God has taken you into the wilderness.  You see, the greater the calling on your life, the greater the persecutions from other people. This is the price behind the anointing.

“My child,” the Lord says, “as you seek My face you will find the hidden streams of living water beneath the desert floor.  For it is not the reputation and approval of man you need, it is to be so deeply rooted in Me so no matter what storms in life come, you will not be moved.”

While God works out His perfect plan, your soul is wrestling and dying in the wilderness. Finally, you stop struggling and quietly pray a prayer of resignation: “Lord, I’ll stay in the wilderness my whole life if I have to. I have found You in the desert and You are all I need!”

Clay in the Potter’s Hands (Pt. 3)

STEP 1: THE POTTER’S HOUSE –

 “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Go down to the Potter’s house, and there I will give you My message.”  So I went down to the Potter’s house, and I saw Him working at the wheel. But the pot He was shaping from the clay was marred in His hands; so the Potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to Him” (Jeremiah 18:1 NIV).

Think back to the day Jesus saved you.  Remember the agony you felt as you cried out to Him from the shattered ash heap of your life.  You were just a broken clay vessel when the Lord, the Master Potter, first found you.

In biblical times, all the shattered vessels were thrown onto a garbage dump outside the village know as the ‘potter’s field.’ This field represents the world. It’s the place where broken lives are thrown after they’ve become worn out and abused; discarded and rejected by the world.

Even though you were a useless clay vessel and your hopes and dreams had been destroyed, He came for you.  Do you remember when He gently picked you up and carried you into the Potter’s house?

What wonder and awe filled your being when you first realized He loved you! How you longed to stay in His arms and bask in His presence. There was nothing you wouldn’t do for Him! Just a glance from His eyes ravished your heart.  “You have ravished my heart and given me courage, my sister, my [promised] bride; you have ravished my heart and given me courage with one look from your eyes …” (Song of Solomon 4:9 Amplified)

With great compassion, He tenderly said, “I know you. Your substance is not hidden from Me, for you were fearfully and wonderfully made.  When you were in your mother’s womb, you were My chosen instrument. And I have destiny and calling for you.” (see Psalm 139:14-16).

With His own scarred hands, He reached into the depths of your heart saying, “But first, I will remove all the rocks, thistles, thorns and foreign matter – all the debris you’ve picked up on the highway of life.”

Then He brought His stone of Unrelenting Love carefully down upon you – cracking open your vessel to a place where all you could do was lay in a heap of dust before Him. Perhaps you were confused because you thought there would be no more pain after you entered His house.  Surely if He loved you as much as He said He did, He wouldn’t allow any more pain to come your way!  After all, you’d been through so much already!

Next, He carefully placed your clay dust in a large bin and poured the clear living water that proceeds from the throne of God over you. (see Rev. 22:1)  Worship and the Word filled your life and brought soothing refreshing to your thirsty soul. He drenched you until you had absorbed this living water into every pore of your being.

After a while, spent in the hands of the Potter, you finally realized this crushing was not for your destruction as it had been in the past.  And you heard Him softly whisper, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11-12). Worship and praise flowed over you and you could say, “Lord, I can feel Your love like never before.”

The journey from salvation to transformation had begun!