The Potter

I am really, really enjoying Beth Moore's Breaking Free study right now. Our group just completed the chapter on 'revisiting the ancient ruins.' It was a powerful message about looking back at the things in your life that may be creating generational sin/bondage/chains you are unaware of--or feel doomed to repeat.

I felt an overwhelming desire to share it with the girls at the group home tonight. I prayed about it a lot...and only 2 showed up for Bible Study. I shared it anyway, believing in God's Sovereignty that they were just the two that He had in mind.

One of the things that I watch happen over and over with these teenaged girls is an seemingly inexplicable repetition of the same cycles that got them taken into state custody in the first place. Even ones (like KP) who seem to be on the right track and ready to change the course of their family's history seem to get sucked back into the lie that they are doomed to repeat their history.

We ended our lesson tonight with this passage. It was so powerful I wanted to also share it hear.

God told Jeremiah, "Up on your feet! Go to the potter's house. When you get there, I'll tell you what I have to say." So I went to the potter's house, and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel. Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot. Then God's Message came to me: "Can't I do just as this potter does, people of Israel?" God's Decree! "Watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you, people of Israel. At any moment I may decide to pull up a people or a country by the roots and get rid of them. But if they repent of their wicked lives, I will think twice and start over with them. At another time I might decide to plant a people or country, but if they don't cooperate and won't listen to me, I will think again and give up on the plans I had for them.

"So, tell the people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem my Message: 'Danger! I'm shaping doom against you, laying plans against you. Turn back from your doomed way of life. Straighten out your lives.'

"But they'll just say, 'Why should we? What's the point? We'll live just the way we've always lived, doom or no doom.'"
Jeremiah 18:1-12 (The Message)

That is a big lie. You are not doomed. He has overcome the world--He can overcome your stuff. Like clay in the Master potter's hands, your story can be reworked and reshaped into something precious and beautiful. Stop fighting against Him. Cooperate. Stop writing self-fulfilling prophesies of failure for yourself and give in to His plan for molding and shaping you. Listen to Him. Don't give up.