Tag Archives: earthen vessels

June 15, 2026 · 5:38 AM

God Uses Ordinary People

My social media algorithm knows I like food and cooking. It has started showing me videos of a content creator who goes to McDonald’s to buy ordinary meals, then takes them to Michelin chefs to see what they will create with the ingredients. I saw one chef take Quarter Pounder with Cheese and turn it into Beef Wellington. Another time a chef took a Filet-o-fish and create a French dish called Fish Quenelles. In every instance I found myself looking at the transformation wanting what they made. The power wasn’t in the ingredients. It was what could become of them in the hands of a master chef.

All throughout the Bible God chose to use ordinary people to do extraordinary things with. These people were simply willing to surrender the ingredients of their ordinary life for God to do something extraordinary with. Take the little boy with the five loaves and two fish. We don’t even know his name, but we know what Jesus did with what he handed Him. Also, think about David. One day he’s a shepherd boy keeping an eye on his flock. His dad doesn’t even think to call him when the prophet comes over looking for a king. There’s even Gideon who was hiding from his enemy’s when God called him to defeat his country’s oppressors. The power wasn’t in those people, but in the God who does the impossible with the ordinary.

2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves” (NLT). Each of us are just ordinary jars of clay. We’re fragile, common and ordinary. On our own, we may not feel or seem like much, but when we place our life in God’s hands He can do incredible things through us. The power and outcome are from God and for His glory. All we have to do is submit ourselves to Him, allow Him to fill our hearts and to pour out what He wants on whomever He wants. God still uses ordinary people to accomplish great things when we’re willing to submit to surrender our jar of clay to Him.

Photo by Xihao Liu on Unsplash

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August 20, 2015 · 5:30 AM

Being The Clay

Several times in the Bible, we are referred to as clay, and God as the potter like in Isaiah 64:8. It says, “And yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand” (NLT). I know that part of why God used the pottery analogy in the Bible was because it was a common thing that the people of that day could easily relate to. You and I don’t see it as much in our world, but the imagery still works.

If you’ve ever watched someone make pottery, there are several images like the one above that comes to mind. The first one that comes to mind is that to be perfectly balanced, we have to be in the center of His “wheel” or will. The wheel is spinning very quickly and unless you are in the center, you typically get thrown off or are wobbly at best. God’s desire for each of us is to be in the center of his will where He places us.

The next image I see is His hands on the clay as it spins. After a potter puts clay in the center of the wheel, He cups His hands around it to make sure it stays balanced. When God starts with each of us, we’re just a lump of unmolded clay. The first thing He does is place His hands around our life. He smooths out our lumps and tests our pliability. No matter how much things seem to be spinning out of control, we stay in God’s hands throughout the process.

After the potter smooths out the edges and has us balanced, he does something interesting. He uses his thumbs to empty the clay of itself, making it hollow. It’s exactly what God does to us. He empties us of ourselves so we can be filled with His love. The more we allow God to take out of us, the more we have room for Him and the things He wants to put in our lives. As I’ve watched potters do this process, they keep one hand on the outside while the other hand pulls out the clay from the inside.

Finally, the potter begins to shape the clay into the vessel He wants it to be. Only the potter can see beyond the lump of clay to what it could be. We look at ourselves as nothing more than a lump of ordinary clay, but when God looks at us, He sees incredible works of art that can be used for His purposes. He doesn’t look at who you are, He looks at who you will become. With patience and loving care, He creates in us things we could never imagine for ourselves. Those things only happen when we are willing to stay in the middle of the wheel and when we allow Him to empty us of ourselves.

The Marathon Message

There’s a story about a man named Pheidippides who lived in Greece in the fifth century. After fighting in a battle against the Persians, he ran from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce the outcome of the battle and that the Persians were headed there to attack. He burst into the assembly and shouted, “Victory!” Shortly thereafter, he collapsed and died. To honor what this man did, people now run about the same distance he did in Marathons. They push their bodies to run over 26 miles as fast as they can.

I’m reminded of the race that you and I are in. Paul told us in I Corinthians 9:24-26 that we need to run our race in order to win. He said that it’s for a temporary crown, but for an eternal one. He then finishes off by saying, “I run with purpose in every step.” Pheidippides ran with purpose as well. He knew that he had to get the message to Athens. He knew there would be trouble if he didn’t. I’m sure he was tired and sore from fighting all day in heavy armor, but he still ran. With every step, he thought about the message he had been given.

What about us? Are we running every step of our race thinking about the message we carry? There is no life too ordinary or too complicated that it is not our responsibility to carry and deliver His message. II Corinthians 4:7 says, “We carry this precious message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives.” Paul recognized that each one of us who have received Christ have this message in us. There’s no life to ordinary that you can’t share “Victory” with someone else. There are too many people who need to hear the Good News we carry for us to remain still and silent.

Eventually we will all get to the finish line. We will all have to stand before God and give an account of how we ran our race. Will the story your life tells be one where you kept the message bottled up and hidden or will it be one where you gave your all in this race so that others may know? If it’s the first of the two, the good news is that your race is not over. There is still time to run your race with purpose. There is still time for you to pick up the pace and to finish strong. When you get to the finish line, you want to be able to shout, “Victory!” And then be able to say like Paul did, “I’ve run hard right to the finish, believed all the way. All that’s left now is the shouting – God’s applause.”

Don’t get caught up in running for the applause of man. That’s the temporary crown that fades. The applause of God is what matters. The way to get the applause of God is to run this race for His glory, not our own. It’s to make His name known and not our own. This treasure that we have inside of us was meant to be shared. The message of Christ’s victory at the cross must be shouted in the assembly until all have heard. Until then, how can we rest? How can we live our lives without purpose? It’s why we were created. It is our purpose.

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