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| [two sixty one] 6.6.11 |
Title: Clay Pots
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
"The jungle indians of Ecuador make clay pots of very simple design with no ornamentation or glaze. They challenged me to try shaping them as they did, rolling "snakes" of wet clay and then coiling them round and round until they had a perfectly smooth and balanced vessel. It looked rather easy, but I found that it was a highly developed skill, and my attempts to imitate it were laughable. Mine was not a master hand.
The next step was to build a very hot fire of thorns and brushwood and bake the pot. It was then ready for use, to carry water from the river or to cook in. Nobody thought much about the pot itself once it was made. What mattered was what was in it.
We are, Paul said, clay pots. The Potter has formed us, shaped us into a useful vessel, put us through the fire of testing that we might be fit to hold what He gives us. We are useful and fit--but we are still clay pots--it's what's inside that matters. It is a priceless treasure (2 Cor 4:7 NEB).
I can think of no clearer analogy of our place in God's service and a no more accurate picture of the relative merits of who we are and what we have to offer. We shall always be just pots, quite cheap on the market, but what we carry for others is priceless.
Love, Paul said in another passage, does not "cherish inflated ideas of its own importance" (l Cor 13:4 JBP)."
Daily devotions courtesy of Devotions.org, a ministry of Back to the Bible.
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