What is to become of you - and are you willing?
You are probably familiar with the English idiom ‘not knowing what to make of something or someone’ - if applied to a person, not being clear and confident about where they are coming from or about their declared intentions.
The use of the word ‘make’ is interesting - if we say to somebody, ‘I don’t know what to make of you’, it’s as if we are imagining being able to take that person and mould them into something else but we are, as yet, undecided about exactly what shape they should be.
God’s desire is to mould and fashion us into someone able to fulfil all our latent potential and one of the key differences between Him and us is that, whereas we are unsure both about our own potential and how it is to be realised, He has a clear and confident impression of what He intends us to become. The big question is not whether God is able to make it happen but whether we will let Him.
In the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, God instructs the prophet to visit the potter’s workshop and there He teaches Jeremiah a vital lesson. The following is taken from ‘Unlocking the Bible’ by David Pawson (p573): “In chapter 18 God tells him (Jeremiah) to visit the potter’s house and observe the potter as he makes vessels, depending on the clay at his disposal. Many assume that the message concerns God’s ability to choose to do whatever He wants with us. Choruses have been written to this effect with lines such as ‘You are the potter, I am the clay’. But this is not the lesson that Jeremiah picked up. He saw the potter’s intention to make a beautiful vase but, because the clay would not run in his hands, he put it back into a lump, threw it on the wheel again and made a thick, crude pot. God asked Jeremiah if he had learned the lesson. Who decided what the clay would become? The answer is that the clay decided, because it wouldn’t run with the potter’s original intention. So the message was that God wanted to make the clay into a beautiful shape , but if the clay would not respond, he would make an ugly shape instead. So, in the context of Jeremiah’s times, God was saying that even at this late stage his people could repent and change and become the beautiful vessel that He had intended. So there is a dynamic relationship between God and people in the Bible. God is not dealing with puppets and decreeing what shall be. Rather He wants a response from us and will make us what He wants us to be if we will cooperate.”
God issues calls and gives commissions to us, as an integral part of the discipleship process. His express intention is that our obedience and the experience of Him working with us will (picking up the pottery metaphor once again) ‘mould us into useful vessels’. Only He has an accurate appreciation of the shape and function of each vessel - we do not. The challenge is twofold - to hear His instruction and to submit to His hand.