Merely Lumps of Clay
Imagine a clay pot complaining about the potter who created it! The thought is absurd. The lump of clay is nothing. In fact, it’s completely worthless until the potter skillfully molds it into whatever he desires.
In biblical imagery, the potter usually refers to God, and the clay to mankind. Yet people always complain about God. In fact, many deny He even exists. Here’s what the prophet Isaiah had to say on the subject:
Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth!Shall the clay say to him who forms it, “What are you making?” Or shall your handiwork say, “He has no hands”? (Isa. 45:9).
How strange that people today tell the Potter what He should do or how He should think. More ridiculous still is the “clay” denying the Potter even has hands. Yet the world is filled with people who claim God does not exist.
“Woe” to them, Isaiah said of such folly. “Surely you have things turned around!” (29:16). People who presume to dictate to God or deny His existence don’t know their true standing in life. They have foolishly tried to put themselves in God’s place:
Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; for shall the thing made say of him who made it, “He did not make me”? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”? (v. 16).
A potter shapes the soft clay with his hands into any shape he desires. As Isaiah declared, “But now, O Lᴏʀᴅ, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our potter; and all we are the work of Your hand” (64:8). God is sovereign. He does as He wishes. He creates and shapes each individual for His own purposes (Jer. 18:6; Rom. 9:20–21). It is up to us to do His will—not the other way around.
