Thoughts to Ponder: Are you Moldable!
“As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand.” Jer 18:6 NKJV
Henry Poppen, one of China’s first missionaries, spent forty years telling its people about the love of Jesus and how He died to take away their sin. One day after he finished speaking, a man approached him and said, “We know this Jesus! He’s been here.” Dr. Poppen explained how that wasn’t possible because Jesus had lived and died long ago in a country far from China. “Oh no,” the man insisted, “He died here. I can even show you his grave.” He led Dr. Poppen outside the city to a cemetery where an American was buried. There, inscribed on a crumbling gravestone was the name of a medical doctor who felt called by God to live and die among the people of this remote Chinese village. And when its people heard Dr. Poppen describe the attributes of Jesus—His mercy, His love, His kindness, His willingness to forgive—they remembered the missionary doctor. God will use you when you’re willing to become “clay in the potter’s hand.” Clay has no aspirations; it’s moldable, pliable, and completely subject to the potter’s will. Henry Blackaby says: “When God’s assignment demands humility, He finds a servant willing to be humbled. When it requires zeal, He looks for someone He can fill with His Spirit. God uses holy vessels, so He finds those who’ll allow Him to remove their impurities. It’s not a noble task being clay—there’s no glamour to it, nothing boast-worthy, except it’s exactly what God’s looking for.” (b gass)