At the Hands of the Potter

“And yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand.” Isaiah 64:8

It was late one evening, and I found myself sitting in a coffee shop with a young college girl listening to her heart on a recent break up. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard similar questions from a single woman trying to figure out how to navigate God’s direction in the area of singleness. How do I honor men during this time in my life? Will I know he is the one? 

My heart so badly wanted to give her a 12-step program on what to do and not to do, but God stirred me to pause. That decision did not sit well with me; there is something more than a to-do list God is wanting to reveal to single women’s hearts.  God has called us to honor, and when we’re single, sometimes it’s hard to know what honor looks like during our singleness. I truly believe in order for us be able to honor men during a time of singleness,we have to understand that men are never ours in the first place.

Isaiah 64:8 talks about all of us being formed by the Potter. We are all being shaped, molded, and polished by our Father. Women must understand that in order to honor anything in their lives, they must first realize how to honor the one who formed them. Honor means to have integrity for one’s beliefs and actions.

I love this definition because it perfectly sums up how we should honor God’s works: it is simply having integrity for his beliefs and actions in our lives. In other words, loving and accepting the clay pot He is creating. Because you, my friend, weren’t meant to carry the responsibility of the Potter…your only responsibility is to continue to be molded and formed in his image.

I have noticed that women compartmentalize God depending on what season they are currently in. A season in the natural sense has a clear start and end, but what if you find yourself widowed and thrown into the single season? Or as a woman in a successful career who hasn’t found a godly man to settle down with? What about a single mom wanting so badly for a loving husband and daddy for your littles? We limit His capacity to move and speak, by placing single women in a “season” when not all of them wanted to be there in the first place. It puts God in a box when in fact He is wanting to move.

So today I am going to speak truth into all the lumps of clay being formed on the Potter’s wheel. Women—married or single, young or old—all women have a specific call and yearning in their hearts that is God-breathed: To follow and honor the one true King. Then we are able to honor men during this season as well, because they too find themselves at the hands of the Potter. Our calling in life is not being single, it is not even being a wife or mom, but it is to first honor Him with all of our being.

This post was written by Madi Mikael.