Jeremiah 18:1–10
King James Version
"O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel." — Jeremiah 18:6
New American Standard Bible 1995
"Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel." — Jeremiah 18:6
English Standard Version
"O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel." — Jeremiah 18:6
I know what broken pottery looks like, because for years I was making it. At twenty-three I started two things at the same time: my life in business, and my drug abuse. They grew up side by side. By day I shook hands and closed deals; by night I chased the next high. I cheated, and I lied to cover the cheating. I gave myself to the sins of the flesh as if they were owed to me. I was abusive too, with my words and my temper, towards people who did not deserve it. The same pride that hid the drugs also ran the business. The sharp word to a supplier. The shortcut justified as "survival". Years later, that pride signed the Star Vista lease when I should have knelt and asked.
What God has done with me since has rarely come in a single flash. It comes through encounters. At Changi, an inmate across the Bible study table tells me he will "just stop" once he is out, and I hear my own voice at twenty-three. At the café, a Restarter covers a mistake with a smooth excuse, and I recognise the glaze. I fired that same pot a hundred times. Again and again the Lord sets a marred vessel in front of me, and it looks uncomfortably like one from my own shelf.
Jeremiah went down to the potter's house and watched. "And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it" (Jeremiah 18:4, KJV). The vessel was marred in the potter's hand. He did not throw it away or pass it to someone else. He pressed it down and began again.
That is the hope Jeremiah carried to Israel. It is also the hope Pastor Paul Tan carried to me through Teen Challenge and Crossroads. Clay cannot reshape itself. Its only part is to stay on the wheel: to confess honestly, to stop defending the crack, and to let the Potter's hands be heavy for a while. Verses 7 to 10 are sobering, because God responds to how we respond. Yet the door He describes is open, and turning is always possible.
I am not finished. Some days I still catch the old shape creeping back. But I am not the vessel I was at twenty-three, nor the one who started TCE in 2017. Each broken pot He shows me is not an accusation. It is an invitation to be pressed down and lifted up again, softer and truer.
At TCE we say we brew coffee and second chances. In truth, we are clay the Potter refused to discard, working beside other clay He is still shaping.
Where is He pressing you down today, and will you stay on the wheel?
Prayer
Father, You are the Potter and I am the clay. When You show me a broken pot that looks like mine, keep me from defending it. Press out the cheating, the craving, the lust and the anger of my past, and the pride of my present. Please mould me, dear Father, into the person You want me to be. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
"But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand." — Isaiah 64:8 (KJV)
The Caffeine Experience · Brewing Coffee & Second Chances
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