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One of the greatest gifts I inherited from the women in my family was a love of needlecrafts. My mother and grandmothers created beautiful works of art and functional everyday items using simple raw materials such as yarn, fabric, beads, and embroidery floss. When I was a young child on summer sleepovers, my grandmother taught me how to knit and crochet, and I still use those skills almost every day. The repetitive motion of needles or hook settles my mind at the end of a stressful day, and the dance of color and design satisfies my creativity. Crafting a garment, home decor item, or gift with my own two hands is immensely gratifying.

There are many other forms of creative expression for which I have no natural talent but plenty of admiration. Some people can take a simple brush and create an awe-inspiring painting or mold a lump of clay or stone into a dish or sculpture. Still others craft elegant furniture or mouth-watering pastries using basic materials.

The Old Testament includes many examples of people offering their artisanal skills to God. In Exodus 35, Moses calls on craftspeople to design and decorate the temple. A master craftsman, Bezalel, is given special mention as one who is filled with the Spirit of God, having wisdom, ability, and expertise in all kinds of crafts, including working with precious metals and gemstones and carving wood. He and Oholiab are commended for their ability to teach others their special skills as engravers, designers, embroiderers, and weavers.

It is no surprise that the Bible describes our Creator God as an artist and craftsman. Jeremiah and Isaiah each portray God as a potter. “Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand” (Isa. 64:8). In the beginning, God created the first human out of the dirt with God’s own hands and breathed life into him (Gen. 2), and now, God takes us as we are, lumps of unformed clay, and transforms us through Jesus into vessels who are filled with the Spirit and fit for serving him. And we are not just lowly cracked pots or chipped plates. We “are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Eph 2:10, NLT).

But before we hang our masterpiece selves on the wall and consider ourselves finished and perfected, we need to go back to Isaiah for a dose of humility. He uses the same illustration of God as the potter to remind us of our place in relation to an all-powerful Creator. “You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘You did not make me’? Can the pot say to the potter, ‘You know nothing’? … Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands’? (Isa. 29:16, 45:9).

Ouch. Do I, like a foolish pot, treat God as if God is stupid and clumsy? I have to admit that there are times in my life when I want to cry out, “Stop, you’re doing it wrong!” God, people I love are suffering. God, my children have turned their backs on you. God, my closest relationships are disappointing or broken, and my circumstances are so lonely and painful. God, I’m not the person I want to be physically, emotionally, or spiritually. I certainly don’t feel like a masterpiece. What are you doing in my life, and why is it taking you so long to do it?

The world’s messages don’t help: “You do you.” “Be true to your authentic self.” This world worships identity and personal expression, and even in the church we sometimes hear things like “God made you special” or “Come as you are; Jesus loves you.” But it would be a mistake to stop there. The truth is this: I don’t belong to myself, as much as the world tries to convince me of that. I “belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 1). This truth sets me free from my sins, certainly, but also from my preconceived ideas and from the ideologies the world thrusts upon me. Yes, God made me as I am, but God doesn’t leave me there. Jesus didn’t pay the price for me so that I can stay unchanged and unformed. I am far too precious to God for that. Like an artist with a lump of clay, a ball of yarn, or a palette of paint, God takes the raw materials of my body, my desires, my dreams, my education, my personality, my circumstances—everything—and creates them anew in Christ Jesus, shaping them for God’s purposes and glory, not my own.

This means I can’t say “That’s just who I am,” or “This is what I want for my life.” Everything must be surrendered to God. In the painful process of being reformed, I might lose things I thought were an essential part of my nature or that I really wanted to keep. God’s plans for my life might not align with my own ideas or even with my deepest desires. “I plead with you,” the apostle Paul writes, “to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him” (Rom. 12:1, NLT). This is such a challenging verse. Am I leading a life worthy of my calling, allowing God to form who I am and what my life will be, or am I hanging on to the things that I think define me and my life? “The LORD says, ‘I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you” (Ps. 32:8, NLT). Do I trust God to do that? Do I trust God enough to give God all of me and every aspect of my life?

God’s promise is that when we trust God to shape and form us, we will be masterpieces that stand the test of time, lasting even into eternity so that “God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us” (Eph 2:7, NLT). We need to be patient with each other in this. None of us is worthy of God’s grace on our own merit, and we are not all at the same place in this process of being formed. Humility is required, both in surrendering our own lives to God, and in waiting and praying for God to do the same in others. But we have the example of Jesus, who surrendered his divine privileges and subjected himself to the will of his Father. His obedience demonstrated unwavering trust in God. Jesus put his human form into the hands of God the potter and fulfilled God’s purpose for his life by dying a humiliating death to pay the price of our redemption (Phil. 2:7-8). He demonstrated this grace to us while we were sinners—unformed raw materials.

Discussion Questions

1. How often do you think of God as an artist, or at least a potter? What are some insights you gain about God from that metaphor?
2. In what sort of circumstances have you been tempted to complain to God? From examining them, what might you learn about yourself and about God?
3. “We are not all at the same place in this process of being formed” by God. Recognizing this fact, how might we be gracious to each other in our spiritual journeys?
4. If Jesus fulfilled God’s purpose for his human life by dying on the cross for others, how might that inform how we view our own destinies in our maker’s hands?