“Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

Cracked Pots

We all have had cracked pottery sometime in our possession. We’ve glued it and patched it hoping someday to use it. Perhaps we just threw it away. I remember in the 1970’s during the last week of the college semester seeing ceramic students selling their wares. At the end of the week, the students purposely broke the remaining pottery by throwing them on the concrete! Beautifully created pottery deemed no longer useful was destroyed by the artists.

We are like broken pottery, like cracked pots. Along life’s journey, cracks have been made in our hearts and souls through the brokenness of criticism, judgment, slander, sorrow, and grief. We have been thrown against the concrete of sin, cracked and broken and sometimes deemed useless by the world’s standards. David wrote in Psalm 31:12, “I was forgotten by them as though I were dead, I have become like broken pottery.” He cried out to God his Creator to deliver him and to shine His face on him (Psalm 31:15).

I am thankful that the Potter who formed us into beautiful pottery does not throw us away, but uses us with all our cracks and flaws. God does not waste the pain of our broken and wounded souls. He is Jehovah Rapha, the LORD who heals. Like a cracked pot with a candle inside that shines light in a darkened room, so is a restored soul once wounded that shines God’s light in a dark, hurting and fallen world. “You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning, my God turns my darkness into light” (Psalm 18:28).

Because of His love, restoration and healing, you are able to “let your light shine before men…and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16 and 1 Peter 2:12) through the cracks in your life. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:6-7). The following excerpt from the song, “Broken Vessels” by Hillsong* supports this verse: “You take our failure, You take our weakness, You set Your treasure, in jars of clay, So take this heart, Lord, I’ll be Your vessel, the world to see Your life in me.”

Remember the words to the children’s song, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine”?** Sing it the next time you get a crack in your pot. You never know how God’s light of forgiveness, grace and love shining through your cracks will bring healing to another soul so their light will shine through their cracks—giving God the glory…a ripple effect.

“Heavenly Father, thank You for filling us cracked and broken pots with Your light of love, healing and restoration so we can shine Your light on a fallen, hurting, and dark world. May Your light shine through us so that it glorifies You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

*Joel Houston/Jonas Myrin ©2014 Hillsong Music Publishing (Admin. by capitol CMG Publishing)  CCLI License #370069

**by Harry Dixon Lops, 1920’s and adapted by William Farley Smith 1987