You Can Be Made Over


I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel.--Jer. 18: 3-4.

This that Jeremiah saw in the potter’s house is a parable of how the Divine Potter remakes the characters and lives of men. As the potter remade the marred vessel, so God has a way of remaking marred lives.

Science talks about the survival of the fittest and leaves no place for the unfit. But God can take the unfit and make them fit. Under the touch of His hands the shapeless ruin of the marred vessel is made over into a vessel of honor meet for His use (II Tim.: 2: 21): the bruised reed is made again into an instrument for sweet music; the feebly smoking flax is rekindled into a flame of uncommon brilliance (Matt. 12: 20).

With God to help us, we need not regard any failure or defeat as final. He can turn the battle from the gate (Isa. 28: 5-6). He can make the lost axe swim (II Kings 6: 6). He can restore the years the canker-worm has eaten (Joel 2: 25). He can refill the empty pitchers with new good wine (John 2: 3-10). He can turn our defeats into triumphs and our failures into victories.

Like the marred vessel in the hands of the potter are the lives of many people--maybe yours. You are not the man you once dreamed of being. In earlier life you felt that God had chosen you to be “a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master’s use,” but you are conscious of having marred God’s ideal and plan for your life. Once you looked forward to a strong and noble manhood; you anticipated a career of high attainments and useful service; but you have pursued a course that has meant the sacrificing of those ideals of honor and usefulness that floated through your fancy in your earlier days. Now the conviction burns itself into your soul, “I had my chance and missed it.”

If this be the case with you, the purport of this scene in the potter’s house is to give you hope. God’s power of repairing loss and making something out of failure is available to you. Ask Him to forgive you, put yourself in His hands, reckon on His grace and power, and--you can be made over!