There are reasons why our lives fall apart. To blame it on bad luck or making wrong choices only touches the surface of what is happening. Deeper than our pain and disappointment, God wants to reform our lives.

Jeremiah’s vision of the potter’s wheel is well known. In the story, there are neglected truths that unless we understand them, we will miss the real reason why the Lord had to crush His original pot to recreate something new. In the reforming process, the Lord is rebuilding the consequence of our sin or our misunderstanding of His will.

The most insightful verse in the story is Jeremiah 18: 4, “The jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over.”

The Lord has hopes for each of our lives. God’s hopes are built upon His perfect love and what He sees for our lives that we cannot yet see. The Lord’s love is so great, that He will crumble the hindering elements of our failure so He can reform us back to His original plan for our life. That reforming may look completely different than we expected and may be misunderstood, but it must take place to accomplish His desire. 

The crushing season can feel immensely painful. Scripture tells us “For the Lord disciplines the one He loves” (Hebrews 12:6). The Lord’s discipline is always an act of love. It gives us a second chance to start over again and rebuild what originally fell apart and caused our lives to resemble a sloppy lump of unformed clay.  

Only under the loving hands of the Lord can the elements of our failures rise again and be reformed back to God’s original plan for our lives. What motivates that restorative work is God’s mercy. Both the crushing and rebuilding are expressions of God’s merciful love. To not understand what constitutes God’s love will cause us to remain in a crumbled state of spiritual immaturity. Remaining in that state will create anger and animosity toward God and prevent us from seeing the finished product of His love.