Centered

for my pearl of grace of the double portion

For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3:16

My daughter is a potter and she is teaching me about God, though she does not realize it. She will graduate tomorrow from a school in Africa. As she leads us around campus, to her delight she discovers the pottery room is open. We quietly watch as she takes her place at the wheel.

In this room she has spent hundreds of hours throwing, shaping, and spinning clay into vessels that fill our home with beauty and purpose. As she has shaped the clay, the Potter has shaped her. She is leaving this sacred place a sacred vessel, a display of the Potter’s beauty and purpose.

“Centering is critical,” she says as she carefully cups the clay, eyes fixed on her creation, her foot constantly spinning the wheel.

“If the clay is not centered, it will break. The shape and strength of the vessel depend on centering.”

“How do you know it’s centered?” I ask.

“I can feel it,” she replies, holding it with one hand while gently using one finger of the other to coax it into solid surrender in the center of the wheel. 

“There it is. It’s centered,” she murmurs with satisfaction. 

The clay spins strong in her artful hands, emerging before my eyes into a beautiful cup of joy.

We talk much these days of centering. Centering prayer is a beautiful practice I turn to daily to quiet my distracted mind and turn my attention to the presence and action of God in my life. But can I truly center myself? Looking at the clay on the potter’s wheel it almost makes me laugh out loud at the ridiculous thought of that little blob rising up and centering herself. She looks powerless to me without the potter.

It occurs to me as my daughter creates that the Lord is the one who centers me, lump that I am. He has centered me, He is centering me, He will center me. Thanks be to God!

The center of our existence is the fact that the Potter so loved us that He gave His one and only Son to become clay so that we might live. #centered Share on X

Jesus surrendered Himself into the hands of His Father’s will, was broken for us upon the wheel, and raised into the vessel of our salvation. He knows the hands of the Potter, the careful shaping that strengthens under His watchful eye. Jesus understands the catalyst power of being held, shaped, and spun all for one marvelous, miraculous purpose. Our Savior was held and shaped as the world spun in all its madness, that you and I would become vessels of God’s love for eternity. Hallelujah! 

I watched stale clay become pliable in the hands of a potter. Steady and focused she held the lump of earth as it twisted and turned. Set on centering, she spun. The vessel became what she had in mind, and she was satisfied with its shape.

The Potter knows the plans He has for us, lumps that we are. He is set on centering us through Jesus Christ His Son. Thanks be to God!

Lord, I surrender to You on the spinning wheel today. Center me, shape me, according to Your will. Amen.

@audreycfrank