You might have sung this song at least once:
Have Thine own way Lord
Have Thine own way
Thou art the potter I am the clay
Mold me and make me after Thy will
While I am waiting yielded and still.*
This image of the Potter and the clay comes from a lesson God taught Jeremiah. He was asked to go to the potter’s house. There he saw the potter working at the wheel. When the pot he was shaping became marred in his hands he formed it into another pot, “shaping it as seemed best to him (Jeremiah 18:4).”
This is a very serious warning. You are like clay in the hand of God the Potter. He can do with you whatever he likes. But he is asking you to be pliable and moldable in his hands. Repentance and turning away from evil will prevent disaster from falling upon you (see 18:8).
But the greater warning comes after this. If God has promised to bless you, to build you up and plant you firmly in good ground; and you disobey God and do evil in his eyes, then listen to what God says: “I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it (18:10). That should make you think. God will not bless someone who continues to sin against him.
Again, God asked Jeremiah to buy a clay jar from the potter and smash it (Read Jeremiah Chapter 19). God said he will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. The smashed jar was symbolic of it. Why? Because “they were stiff-necked and would not listen to my words (19:15).”
Dear friend, there is a time when God is patient with you. There is a time when he gives you a second chance. There is a time when he forgives, shows you mercy and compassion. But do not test God beyond limit. Do not take his mercy for granted.
Remember he is the Potter and you are the clay. He can do with you whatever he wants. Either you can yield to his molding hand or be smashed like a jar because you are stiff-necked. And then you cannot be repaired (19:11)!
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*Song was written by Miss. Adelaide A. Pollard in 1902.