The Love of the Potters hands

I've been struggling with several trials in my life as of recently. I realize I'm not alone in this many of us at any given time are struggling with a variety of issues before us. This has caused me to stop and reflect on another of the lessons we use to use in the illustrations with parents and training of their children. We would often use the concept of our childrens hearts being like that of a ball of clay. As a young child their hearts are soft, permiable, even plyable, moldable and soft. Hearts easily conformed and worked with. As the child grew older the heart took on shape and began to harden, making our job as a parent all the more difficult to train and discipline. This was the purpose for training our children while they are young.

I started thinking more and more about this principal today. I started to see how this apply's with that of each of us. The trials we all face, some more difficult then others, are just that, trials. Opportunities for each of us to grow and face 'changes' in our lives. Trials serve as motivation for change, motivation to grow and learn. Our lives moldable and workable in the potters hands. If not for the love of our Father we would be left on the shelf hardened in the shape we are at, unchangable, unable to grow. But with the constancy of 'trials' we feel God's love for us in a tangable way. The question is, do we choose to look at trials in a way of 'potential' and love or do we choose to look at it simply as discipline?

"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."