When I was in high school, I took a pottery class that, although the years have passed, some aspects haunt my mind with their truths.

Our first class we did one task only: having received a freshly cut wedge of clay, we threw it repeatedly onto our desks. We were told that even a freshly cut wedge of clay had imperceptible air bubbles locked inside it. If we worked the clay and formed it without removing these pockets of air, instead of hardening and making the vessels solid and useable, the kiln would have exploded our formations when they were exposed to the high temperatures.

In fact, a skilled potter knows that they must throw and knead a chunk of clay extensively before forming it. At the same time, they know that slamming the clay too hard will produce more air bubbles than it removes. The experienced potter knows just the right intensity required by the clay to create a piece that can withstand kiln temperatures in excess of 2000 degrees.

The novice that I was wanted a vessel to admire by the end of the class, not a simple lump of clay that looked hardly different from what I had received an hour before. I wanted results, tangible results. An hour of throwing clay was not what I thought I’d signed up for.

Shaping the cool, smooth clay the following day was more my speed. I was seeing results! Stick it in the oven and bake it, I thought.

Alas, three weeks of drying the vessel out was the next phase before finally firing it in the kiln for eight hours and then leaving it for another day to cool.

What a picture of my life so much of the time.

Everything in the process of developing and refining seems to take much more time and effort than I had bargained for. My Abba Father, the Potter, knows what He is doing. I don’t always see the air pockets the Potter is attempting to work out of me, but He does. And though I may fuss and strain against His painstaking process, if I will just trust the Potter, I will trust His process, too.

What if, instead of torturing us by “wasting time,” He is just working us like clay in His hands, molding and remolding, working out the air bubbles that would not withstand the heat and pressure of the kiln? He works and reworks with patience and care though we might wish He would simply bring about some completion.

Everything in the process of developing and refining seems to take much more time and effort than I had bargained for. But my Abba Father, the Potter, knows what He is doing..... Come read the full blog at amiloper.com and learn about the essential … — Everything in the process of developing and refining seems to take much more time and effort than I had bargained for. But my Abba Father, the Potter, knows what He is doing..... Come read the full blog at amiloper.com and learn about the essential journey of process and how we can trust the Potter in the midst of it. #ChristianBlog

Only we can choose to withstand the pressing out of the bubbles, the shaping and reshaping. Only we can choose to stay on the Potter’s wheel, in the Potter’s hands. And how many times have I been tempted to bypass His process, to take matters into my own unknowing hands, and take what I am sure is a viable shortcut?

There are surely times in all of our lives that the pain overwhelms, the enemy seduces us into thinking we’ll have it easier if we do it our own way and we fall for the lie that life will be simpler if we weren’t spinning around like a pot on a wheel. For those of us who’ve made the error of recanting our former commitment to the process, it is usually something that only happens once. Truly, there is no freedom in it. There is no peace or comfort or solace in leaving the hands of the Lord. There is only confusion and chaos.

Even in my darkest nights of the soul, I can only come to the conclusion that regardless of whether things turn out the way I thought they should, regardless of whether or not I see the goodness of God in the measure or in the manner I thought I would, God is still God. He is still the Creator of the universe and of my tiny heart. He sits on His throne that I will one day stand before to give an account and He is worthy of praise regardless of how things are processing in my life.

As Peter said to Jesus in a moment of disappointment for Jesus’ disregard for the earthly version of success, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Whatever happens, there is no other option but Jesus.

And if you’ve made the error of leaping off the wheel because it just got to be too much, that opportunity to surrender isn’t gone forever. But only you can choose to climb back on the wheel.

As God showed Jeremiah at the potter’s house, He never throws away marred pots – not even foolish pots who have marred themselves.

Jeremiah wrote, “So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do” (Jeremiah 18:3-4).

We are not discarded for what others might say spoils us. No. Instead the Potter welcomes us back to the wheel of His process and moves forward, lovingly reshaping.

This process, this often arduous, painstaking process may look like torture. It may at times feel unloving on the Father’s part. Rest assured, Friend, there are no more loving hands to which you could surrender. There is no heart and purpose more worthy of your trust than the Lord’s.

“But now, O Yahweh, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Isaiah 64:8

Read more about letting God have His way in your life. Read the blog titled, “Humility, Blind Spots and Explosive Soup” HERE!

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Refined In His Hands