Jeremiah 18:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, 2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, 6 “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.”
When human beings come to the Lord to pray, they must realize that they are in the hands of the Lord as the clay is in the hands of a potter. The Lord can do with each human being as He pleases much as the human potter does with the clay. As the potter in the text above made the clay as it pleased him to make, so the Lord does with human beings. This is true of each person that prays or tries to pray and this is true of each and every person that does not pray or try to pray. If people are not in the hands of the Lord as the Divine Potter to do with as He pleases, then why do we pray in the first place? In reality, the very basis for praying for others is that they are in the hands of the Divine Potter and He can do with them as He pleases. While it may be hard for us to think of others in this way, it may be even harder to think of ourselves in this way. However, if this attitude is the basis for true prayer for others, it is also the basis for true prayer for ourselves. It is really a proper understanding of ourselves and of God. This understanding teaches us of our proper attitude before God as well.
If we are as clay in His hands to be formed into what He pleases and at His good pleasure, then we should not desire anything else. We do, after all, are supposed to pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. If it is His will for us to be in His hand to be shaped according to His pleasure, then in order to pray in truth we must not desire anything less nor anything more than what the Lord is pleased to do. How humbling it is to realize that we are clay in His hands and will be formed as He pleases, but it is even more humbling to realize that our desires to be more than clay and to do as we please is to step out of the created order.
When believers are young and inexperienced, they seem to think that they can pray as they please. They seem to have desires to pray and desires for God. But as the believer grows and matures, it seems that the desires grow colder and that praying is much harder. One way to understand this is to compare it to children. As long as the parent is holding the child, walking seems to be easier, but the more the parent lets the weight and balance be more for the child, the harder walking really is. This is how the Lord treats His children. As they mature, He draws back to teach them utter dependence upon Him for true desires. While prayer seems harder, it is because He is teaching His children how they must seek Him even for their desires.
If we truly desire to be clay in His hands to be formed at His good pleasure, then we should desire to be taught to pray as He pleases as well. Our petitions should come from a humble heart that has been taught by Him to pray. If prayer is to be spiritual, then it cannot come from the flesh but must come from Him. If we are to love in prayer, as nothing we do apart from love can be acceptable, then we must receive that love from Him as He is the only source for true love. The soul must be taught of God and receive all from God if it is to pray to God out of love and with a true desire for His glory.
With many things in life we only need to hear about them or learn them once and we can use what we have learned for life. In prayer, however, we must be taught each time we pray or be taught without ceasing as we are to pray without ceasing. The body can go for days without food, yet it must have nutrition to live and to function. The soul must also be fed, but the soul must have grace given to it each time it acts as opposed to a daily or weekly feeding. The soul lives by grace and it must receive that grace constantly. Prayer is something we must learn each time in the sense that we are to learn how to pray at that moment and yet constantly be receiving grace in order to pray. Our desires must constantly be taught and nourished before and during true prayer. We are to be totally dependent on Him, but also totally dependent each moment. The Potter works in and on the clay constantly rather than just here and there.
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