Tag: marred

It’s hard to believe another year is coming to a close.  Mine is not exactly coming to an ideal end.  I caught my third cold in the past month or so. 

I suppose it doesn’t help to have a daughter who keeps spreading the germs she catches from nursery school.  All part of a broken world, I suppose.  And all of us are a part of it.

But here, we see that God can take something that is broken or marred and turn it into something beautiful. 

God told Jeremiah to go to a potter’s house, and as Jeremiah observed, he saw a potter shaping a pot.  When Jeremiah looked carefully however, he saw that the pot was marred. 

But the potter didn’t throw it away.  Rather, the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as he saw fit.  Then God told Jeremiah,

“O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord. 

“Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.”  (Jeremiah 18:6)

The house of Israel was marred by their sin.  But God let them know that as badly marred as they were by their sin, they could still be shaped into something beautiful.

And he tells us the same. 

Maybe you look at your life and think that you’re worthless.  Maybe you look at your life and think that it’s so bad that even God couldn’t possibly love you.

But no matter how marred you are, God can take the scars of your life and heal them.  He can take your brokenness and restore you.

It was for that purpose that Jesus himself was marred.  As Isaiah 53:5 says,

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Do you feel you are damaged goods?  God can forgive you and restore you.  All you have to do is turn to him.

As the old song goes,

Something beautiful, something good.
All of my confusion, he understood.

All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife,
But he made something beautiful of my life.

— Bill Gaither