Your Life Is Not Ruined
You Are Still in the Potter's Hands
Have you ever made something and messed it up badly enough that your first thought was:
Well...that's ruined.
Maybe you were drawing something.
Building something.
Cooking something.
Editing a video.
Writing an assignment.
Trying to fix your hair five minutes before you needed to leave.
There is a certain point where you look at what you hoped it would become and what is actually sitting in front of you and think:
There is no saving this.
We sometimes do the same thing with our lives.
You thought the friendship would last.
It didn't.
You planned to make the team.
You didn't.
You expected your family to look different.
Something changed.
You made a decision you wish you could undo.
You thought you'd be further along by now.
Something happened that wasn't part of your plan.
And suddenly you're not just disappointed about what happened.
You're making a much bigger conclusion:
My life is ruined.
Jeremiah once watched a potter dealing with something remarkably similar.
God told Jeremiah:
“Arise, and go down to the potter's house.”
—Jeremiah 18:2
Jeremiah went and watched the potter working clay on a wheel.
Then scripture says:
“The vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter.”
—Jeremiah 18:4
That phrase contains one small detail that changes the entire picture.
The clay was marred.
Something wasn't turning out as expected.
But notice where the clay still was:
“In the hand of the potter.”
The potter hadn't abandoned it.
He hadn't thrown it away.
He hadn't looked at the mistake and decided there was no possible future left for the clay.
Jeremiah says:
“He made it again another vessel.”
Then God explains the lesson:
“As the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand.”
—Jeremiah 18:6
There is a truth in that image that you may need someday.
Maybe today.
A life that needs reshaping is not a ruined life.
There are all kinds of ways life can become different from what we expected.
Sometimes we make choices that create consequences.
Sometimes other people make choices that affect us.
Sometimes plans simply don't work.
Sometimes we lose things.
Sometimes our bodies change.
Sometimes doors close.
Sometimes we look at the version of the future we pictured and realize that version may not happen.
And because we loved that picture so much, we start believing it was the only picture that could ever be good.
Jeremiah's potter says otherwise.
The vessel became marred.
But the Potter could still work with the clay as it actually was now.
That's important.
God doesn't need you to somehow return to an earlier version of your life before He can do something meaningful with it.
He can begin with where you are.
Right now.
With this history.
This mistake.
This disappointment.
This weakness.
This unexpected change.
This version of the clay.
And He can keep working.
But clay has to remain workable.
A potter can't do much with clay that has become completely hard and brittle.
Clay needs moisture.
Water keeps it soft enough to respond to the potter's hands.
That makes another phrase in Jeremiah especially interesting.
Earlier, God described Himself as:
“the fountain of living waters.”
—Jeremiah 2:13
Jesus Christ later used that same image.
He told the woman at the well that He could give living water that would become in a person “a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14).
Think about the picture Jeremiah gives us:
God is the Potter.
We are the clay.
Christ offers Living Water.
And water keeps clay soft enough to be shaped.
Have you ever left a dirty plate or pan sitting out until the food hardened onto it?
You can scrub like your life depends on it.
Or you can do what people eventually learn after washing enough dishes:
Let it soak.
Water softens what has become hard.
Hearts can become hard too.
Pain can do that.
Embarrassment can.
Disappointment.
Being betrayed.
Feeling ignored.
Having prayers answered differently than you hoped.
Repeatedly struggling with the same weakness.
At first you're hurt.
Then maybe you become angry.
Then cynical.
Then detached.
Eventually you stop expecting anything from God at all.
The Book of Mormon describes an interesting pattern after years of war.
Alma says:
“Many had become hardened… and many were softened because of their afflictions.”
—Alma 62:41
Same war.
Same years of difficulty.
Different hearts.
The difficult experience alone didn't determine who they became.
Their response mattered.
Nephi gives us another clue.
When he was struggling to understand what was happening in his family, he says:
“I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart.”
—1 Nephi 2:16
Nephi took his confusion toward God.
That kept his heart reachable.
There may be a difficult experience in your life right now that you desperately want God to remove.
Keep praying about that.
But maybe there is another prayer worth adding:
“Heavenly Father, while I am under this pressure, please keep my heart soft enough for You to shape me.”
That's a different prayer.
Instead of only asking:
Why is this happening?
you begin asking:
What can You shape in me while I go through it?
Maybe greater compassion.
Humility.
Courage.
Patience.
Better priorities.
A stronger testimony.
More dependence on Christ.
A different direction.
A deeper understanding of somebody else's pain.
Sometimes we won't understand the shape while we're still spinning on the wheel.
But discipleship eventually requires saying:
I don't completely understand the shape yet, but I trust the hands.
You are still in the Potter's hands.
And that's a very different thing from being ruined.
Scripture
“The vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel.”
—Jeremiah 18:4
“Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand.”
—Jeremiah 18:6
“They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters.”
—Jeremiah 2:13
“Many had become hardened… and many were softened because of their afflictions.”
—Alma 62:41
“I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart.”
—1 Nephi 2:16
Reflection
Is there any part of your life that feels “marred” or different from what you expected?
Why do we sometimes confuse needing to be reshaped with being ruined?
What do you learn from the fact that the clay was still “in the hand of the potter”?
When life becomes difficult, what tends to make your heart harder?
What helps soften it again?
Why do you think the same kinds of difficult experiences can soften one person and harden another?
What would it look like for you to stay close to Christ—the Living Water—right now?
Today's Challenge
Think of one situation in your life that is currently putting pressure on you.
Maybe it's school.
Family.
A friendship.
A decision.
A weakness.
Loneliness.
Something that hasn't turned out the way you hoped.
When you pray tonight, tell Heavenly Father honestly what you want Him to change.
Then add one more question:
“Heavenly Father, what can You shape in me while I go through this?”
Afterward, choose one way to stay close to the Living Water this week.
Pray more honestly.
Return to scripture.
Repent instead of hiding.
Forgive.
Take the sacrament more deliberately.
Talk to someone you trust.
Serve.
Worship.
Bring the question to God instead of quietly withdrawing from Him.
Stay near the Water.
Let Him keep the clay soft.
Christ-Centered Thought
Jesus Christ is exceptionally good at making something beautiful out of things that looked finished.
His friends watched Him die.
His body was placed in a tomb.
A stone was rolled across the entrance.
From a mortal perspective, the story looked over.
It wasn't.
Resurrection is the ultimate proof that God can create a future where we cannot see one.
That's why you don't have to panic when some part of your life becomes different from the picture you had in your head.
Jesus Christ specializes in redemption.
He can forgive what needs forgiving.
Heal what can be healed.
Strengthen what remains weak.
Redirect what needs redirecting.
And resurrect what death itself seems to have ended.
The Potter is not afraid of marred clay.
He knows what He is doing with it.
So when life doesn't look like you thought it would, remember where the clay in Jeremiah's story still was:
In the Potter's hands.
A life that needs reshaping is not a ruined life.
Stay close to the Living Water.
Stay soft.
And let Him keep forming you.
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