I am the Potter; you are the clay

Today’s first reading, Jeremiah 18: 1-6, is about the Divine Potter, who takes the clay that we are and the clay of our experiences and shapes them into an image of Himself, pours out His Spirit upon them, and makes them vehicles of love and forgiveness, uses them  in a way that empowers us to form right relationships.  As I reflected on that passage and the psalm of today’s liturgy, Ps. 146, what came into my consciousness was the following message:

“(Insert your name), as the psalmist says, there is no salvation in human beings.  None! Their plans vanish and are buried with them when they die (cf Ps. 146: 3-4). Your help, the saving graces that you seek, come from Me.  I am your God. I shepherd your soul.

“Just as I, the Divine Potter, formed you in your mother’s womb (Ps. 139: 13), so, too, do I give form, life and spirit to you now. The mystery of your becoming human is now the mystery of your becoming divine.  I alone can do that. I reshape and remold you  until the vessel I am making is pure gold, not the gold of this earth but the gold of eternity, the gold of a divine image that glorifies Me, praises Me, imitates Me and delights in Me as I delight in you. What delights me is not what delights the world. It is the difference between living from the heart, living from the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.  Do not put your faith in the law. The law cannot save (compare Galatians 3: 10-14). Only I do that. Law does not give life. Only I do that.  When you build your life on the letter of the law, you build it on sand. A storm comes and it collapses.

When I said to the Lord: “But, Lord, laws are important,” I heard the following message in my consciousness:

“Not the kind deprived of spirit, of love, that are unjust, that are not life-giving, that are disrespectful of others, that do not promote right relationships, that do not honor Me or you.  Look at the Scriptures. I never used laws to humiliate people, to put them down. I never used laws to control people. Those behaviors lack spirit and are not motivated by love.”

These reflections left me with the question:  Am I turning out in such a way that the Divine Potter needs to remake me, reshape my behaviors, remold my attitudes, redirect my choices, and renew my energy in accordance with the will of God?