Addressing Teachers - 1963

What is the lesson contained in the image of the potter’s wheel? The simple lesson is that in regard to life, and sustenance and service and destiny, we are in God’s hands. ‘As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in my hand.’ says the Lord. We have seen that in many ways in our own experience.

You know how we depend on God for our daily food. In nature one plants, and another waters; but God gives the increase. We plough the field and scatter the good seed on the land, but it is the life in the seed which makes the plant to grow and to bear fruit. That life in the seed is life that comes from God. In the beginning He created the heavens and the earth, and constantly since then the physical world is surrounded by the continuous flowing in of His power. We have no control over those factors which help the growth of the plants. We cannot, for example, control the wind. We cannot order the rains to fall when we want to water the crops, nor can we stop them from falling at our will and pleasure. The control of nature is with her maker. We are entirely in God’s hands for our food and sustenance.

‘As the clay is in the potter’s hand so are ye in my hand.’ We see how true it is in the way we have been guided throughout life. Consider for example how we came to choose our life’s work. You look back on your life and remember the chain of accidents that settled you in your present work. As you look back, it seems as if you had neither art nor part in it. Personal choice of teaching my work We are in God’s hands. F.W. Robertson tells how he became a minister. It was, he says, through the barking of a dog. He intended to become a soldier. But one night his dog barked so much, that a lady who lived in the house next door, and who had an invalid daughter, wrote to him complaining about the dog. Being the gentleman he was, Robertson called to apologise. In that way he became acquainted with the people of the house, who introduced him to a friend of theirs, a Bishop. In a talk with the Bishop one day, the latter advised him to give up the idea of going into the army, and to become a clergyman instead. He did so. “And so,” says Robertson himself, “if my dog had not barked that night, I should now have been in the army.” “Who can say,” he adds, “that these things are not ordered.”

We see the control of God over us in the spiritual realm. We have seen in our religious experience how God works in the hearts of men, and effects changes quite apart from any effort of our own. In our religious work all we can do, is to bring souls into touch with God and to leave them there. For it is God who gives the increase. Some men know that well. For they have the experience of being suddenly gripped by God. They remember that moment when, in a flash, it dawned on them that Christ’s word was true, and the power of the truth held them mightily. We plan a great deal and we work hard, and we have often found how God works quite apart from what we have done – sometimes, of course, using us and sometimes quite apart from us.

Those are some thoughts arising from the metaphor of the potter. Let us now think of what the potter makes. He makes vessels; that is he makes something for use. In the making he determines the uses – earthen pots, goblets etc.

God has imposed on each one of us a service. By the nature of the endowment which has given us he has assigned to each of us a particular task. And these services are very different. Some tasks are of more of a responsible nature than others. Some are considered more honourable than others. The work we are called upon to do, is dependent upon our original physical, social, mental and spiritual complexions. The kind of service to which God calls us depends on our natural endowments – our talents and temperaments. Therefore we have to give our assent to the will of God. We are in God’s hands. He calls us to His service and He chooses the kind of work we have to do.

We thank God today that he has called us to be teachers. He has called us to this service and he has given us the gifts necessary for this work. As teachers we are engaged in the kind of work in which God is engaged all the time. He is constantly reshaping and remoulding our lives. He removes from our nature those blemishes which prevent our developing into a healthy personality, and is making us into men and women who would exhibit a beautiful character. The young people committed to our charge are like the clay. They yield to treatment. We are called upon to exert an influence on the young children committed to our charge and to shape their lives. What they grow to be as men and women and the characters they would exhibit would depend largely on the environment we create for them in the school, and the influence we bring to bear upon them. As teachers we are engaged in shaping lives. It is a tremendous responsibility that we have undertaken. Let us pray that we may not be neglectful of the duties entrusted to us, and the opportunities given to us.

There is another thought arising from this metaphor. A man may be a vessel in God’s hands, used by Him and doing His work; and yet the man himself may not be God’s. The divine power, many a time, gets service from evil men; sometimes indirectly, but at other times directly. It is possible for those that are not God’s to be great in God’s service. One example is Cyrus in the Old Testament. Therefore let us never be content with being useful in God’s work. Let us never be content until He comes to dwell in the innermost sacred recesses of the heart.

We who are engaged in Christian service, that of teaching or healing or in any other form of service, are apt to be satisfied with what we are. It is not enough to make ourselves useful in God’s service. We must strive to have that intimate fellowship with God. If our service to God is to bear fruit, we must first come into close fellowship with God. We may keep ourselves quite busy at school with various activities, particularly those who are in charge of the administration, and we may become satisfied with our Christian life and service. But God wants us more than any service we can render to him. God wants us to come into that intimate fellowship with him.

One other thought before we close – the whole history of mankind is just what the prophet saw in the potter’s workshop. There the potter was making new vessels out of the vessels already marred. God is constantly doing the same with us individuals and nations. He is making us go through fresh experiences, and face new situations in order to remake us and remould us. Time after time Israel refused to be moulded after the pattern in the mind of God. And time after time God made of it another vessel by making them go through the experiences of famine, war, pestilence or exile. I think it is true to say that in our national life we are going through experiences through which we have never gone before. It is a new situation that we are facing now. We must believe that through all these God is remoulding and reshaping us – not only as individuals, but also as a people. What is it that God wants us to be? What are our faults and blemishes that we should cast away in order that God may make us into new vessels?