Jeremiah was a prophet of God. God would give messages to Jeremiah and Jeremiah would preach the message to the people. Sometimes the people did not like the messages that Jeremiah preached. He sometimes told them that they were sinful. He warned them that God would destroy their country if they did not stop sinning.
At one point in this book, God gave Jeremiah a message in a special way. He told Jeremiah to go to the house of a potter which was someone who made pottery. They used clay to make bowls, lamps, plates and lots of other kinds of dishes.
Specifically in chapter 18 of the book of Jeremiah, he walked into the potter’s home to that the vase the potter is spinning on his wheel was imperfect and misshapen.
However, the potter kept working on the vase nonetheless. Over time, he kept spinning the wheel and reshaping the clay until it was made into a beautiful symmetrical vase.
It was at that moment that God spoke in Jeremiah 18:6 saying:
“Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel."
What we learn from this story is that we are all works in progress like clay on a wheel. Of course, being in the fallen world that we live in, life is undoubtedly going to misshape us. But it's always important to remember whose hands we are in. We are in the hands of the ultimate potter, God. No matter how messed up our lives are, He is able to shape even the most messed up lump of clay into something beautiful.
If you are still breathing and your heart is beating, God has not stopped working on you and He will never stop working on you. You are not too broken for God to do something amazing with. His ability to work in your life is not based on your capacity to clean yourself up, it's in unending and unstoppable power.
If you feel unfinished, lopsided, or misshapen today, run to your potter. Trust God's hand in your life and know that He will keep reshaping you more and more into what He wants you to be.
"O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” - Isaiah 64:8