God the Potter: What the Bible Says About Clay, Soft Hearts, and Spiritual Growth
- Eljoh Hartzer, MTh
- Jul 17
- 13 min read
As a novice gardener, I'm learning to enjoy the feeling of getting my hands dirty. I wonder about how that is also one of God's first actions in the Bible - He reached down and formed mankind from the dust. When we think about God the Potter, we often abstract that image and view it without the rest of Scripture that colors it in.
This contemplative article places the whole 'God is the Potter, We are the Clay' idea front and centre - then I use other verses, popular and lesser-known, from Genesis to Revelation to make sense of it. Practically speaking, this metaphor speaks into a believer's life on themes like hard hearts, spiritual blindness, and growth.
May you find space here to pause, reflect, and abide.
Page 1 of the Bible: God the Maker Got His Hands Dirty
While God spoke all of creation into being, He did something very different when He made mankind. Genesis tells us how the Maker suddenly stooped down and picked up some soil.
He got His hands dirty.
While everything else was made by the words of His mouth, the pattern changes swiftly when it comes to how He made humankind. God was not distant in how we were made. I imagine Him, in the garden, kneeling down and gathering soil in the palm of His hand.
When I say He got His hands dirty, it means that He is not 'stand-offish' or unapproachable. Nothing about you - your broken places, your hardness of heart - is too much for Him. That is why we have to take it all the way back to the very beginning.
God did not only happen upon your life. He made you. He is the Potter because He is the Maker.
God shaped mankind from the dust of the earth, but He made him into something special:
You were made Imago Dei. That means, in the likeness/image of God.
"Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." --Genesis 2:7
The man walked with God in the garden, working with Him, and learning from Him every day. They enjoyed friendship and fellowship as they walked hand-in-hand.
I recently built a garden from scratch and - let me tell you - it's an incredibly hard task that takes constant effort. As I walk through my garden that's slowly starting to look like something, I'm reminded of this first garden in the Bible - how God made the first man from the soil and how they walked with Him in the cool of the day.
In the years that followed that act of loving creation, the Fall of Sin, and all that followed, something happened to the person God made. Living far from the Maker who cares for him, the man of clay did not know how to look after himself. He got scuffed up, small cracks formed, and whole parts broke off.
Hebrews 3:7–8 "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts..."
The Maker is still wandering through the garden and calling out, as He did for Adam and Eve: "Where are you?" Stained by sin, they hid behind fig leaves sewn together. There was a big divide between people and God from that moment on - a crack formed in the clay.
The Israelites Hardened their Hearts toward their God
"Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel." - Jeremiah 18:6
So often, instead of being soft clay in the Potter's hand, allowing Him to shape us into whatever will glorify Him, we are more like hard stones.
Our hearts are hard. We resist change. We are set in our ways. We are stubborn. Unyielding.
Hard hearts aren't formed overnight. They slowly lose moisture as disappointment, grief, unanswered prayers, perfectionism, busyness, and self-protection dry us out. You probably know exactly who or what caused your heart to grow hard.
Instead of being gently shaped by the Potter, the trials and changes that come our way chisel away at us.
It's painful, tough, and we resist them.
Sometimes our hearts stop turning toward God. We withdraw, become numb, question His goodness, or quietly resist His invitation. Or we wave our fists at Him and beat our chests.
"Unfair," we whisper under our breath, forgetting that even that is a free gift from Him.
When our hearts become hard, even ordinary burdens often begin to feel heavier. And, actually, everything in life will be hard for you if you are hard in it. Everything and everyone will rub you the wrong way.
You will chafe against it all. It's no wonder everything feels hard -
You are.
We take the advice of the world and toughen up or grow up. I'm reminded of when a plant in my garden like lavender gets out of control. The branches get so stick-like and hard that they pull the whole plant out of proportion and it needs a proper pruning.
Hard hearts will incur discipline from the Lord. Not every hardship is God's discipline—but every hardship can become His invitation. He can use anything to shape you (remember He redeems it all). This is because He, the Potter, is interested in shaping you.
He loves you as you are. And then His love transforms you.
Any situation can shape you into who God made you to be - but only if you let it.
You don't need to go through trauma, or jump through certain hurdles before you can be refined.
But you do need to soften and allow Him to shape you. You need to let go of control.
Clay does not shape itself - so you need to let go of how you thought things would turn out, who you wished you would become, and what it looked like on your timeline.
No Heart of Stone is too Hard for God to Heal
Ezekiel 36:26 - "I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
But God, in His great compassion, did not leave that first divide be. In His kindness, He became one of us and walked these dusty streets. He worked with His father for thirty years of hard labor before He was sent by His Father into ministry.
God came to us, in Jesus Christ, and taught the way of the beginning once more.
What God desires for each of us is to give us a beating heart - the life to the fullest that Jesus promised. He envisions us walking closely with Him - like in the garden - and abiding in Him.
Yet while God has great plans for what we could become in His skilled artisan hands; we cling to the lump of clay that we are - thinking 'Surely, there can be nothing better than this current form'.
We bang our heads again and again. Punish ourselves for old mistakes. Allow our sharp edges to cut anyone who dares come close.
How does hard clay become soft? When I work with air-dry clay and it starts forming clumps in my hand, I instinctively know what is needed: water. I take a brush or my fingertips and bathe the clay, covering it in water where it had gone hard.
The clay finally softens.
"Now, this I can work with"
Scripture doesn't leave us wondering how hardened hearts can become soft. Again and again, God uses another image alongside clay: water.
God the Potter, Jesus the Water & Spiritual Hardness
"We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand."- Isaiah 64:8
God also uses water to soften hard hearts. Living water.
Jesus spoke about this when He met the woman at the old stone well and promised her that the water He gives means that she will never thirst again.
The person who stays near Him, Psalm 1 promises, will be planted next to streams of life-giving water.
Water can wear away even the toughest stone. There is no stronger force on earth, I think.
Even in Revelation, the water plays a key role, with rivers running down from the Throne and into the world. Throughtout Scripture - as in our real life - water is a symbol for purifying, cleaning, refreshing, and new life. Water reflects the light of God in brilliant, mesmerizing glimmers.
Once, Jesus stooped down again like the Maker did in that first garden - just like His Father, the Son was picking up mud. He too got His hands dirty, and what did He do next? (John 9:6-7) He put the mud over the eyes of the blind man and allowed him to see.
God the Potter formed mankind by kneeling down and picking up soil; Jesus healed mankind by kneeling down and picking up soil.
Why did Jesus use mud to heal? Perhaps because He was echoing the Maker. He could have healed using only words or touch, like He had so many times before, but for some reason Jesus chose a different method.
In addition to physical healing, Jesus addressed spiritual blindness often - this is also known as the hardness of hearts. He came so that we might be healed. He came so that we can see. No longer did the person God made have to continue living in darkness - the light came into the world.
But light also exposes cracks. If you put a candle inside a clay pot, the light will show you exactly where there are broken bits.
Because light exposes brokenness, the people did not like Him. They snuffed out His light. He died so they could live. The light came into the world, in the words of John, yet the world did not accept the light.
We often pray for God's light to shine in our life, but we forget that He is purifying and all-consuming flame. His light reveals where we need to grow.
Our spiritual hardness and spiritual blindness lead us to become numb to Him as stiff-necked people.
We pack our ears with cotton so we cannot hear Him.
"To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the Lord is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it." - Jeremiah 6:10
But once the clay is soft, the Potter can do wonders with it.
Clay doesn't become valuable because it is soft. It becomes useful because its softness allows the potter to shape it into something that can hold life. A lump of clay cannot carry water or store grain, but a vessel can. A lump of clay cannot hold new wine or candlelight. In the same way,
God softens our hearts not for softness' sake, but so that we might become people who carry His presence into the world. The Potter's fingerprints are all over the clay shaped by His hands.
So how can you become like soft clay? How can you soften a hard heart?
Becoming Soft and Malleable Clay
Tears soften hearts - the water of the soul.
What God asks of us is a responsive heart - a heart that truly feels and does not hide away from the cracks. There is perhaps no better way to soften your own stone heart than through crying. (And I'm saying this as someone who's not a big crier, but even I know that there is a special sort of awakening that happens when we allow tears to fall.) Nehemiah cried before he built.
Clay in the Potter's hand is touched, caressed, smoothed over - sometimes broken and rebuilt. It's a humble and soft way of being.
Pray this right now: "God, I welcome Your touch. I humble myself in the palm of Your hand."
2 Chronicles 34:2 "Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God... I have heard you."
God shapes us into something beautiful. He who turns graves into gardens and bones into armies looks at this lump of clay and creates something of note.
God isn't asking you to fix yourself. He's asking you to soften so He can shape you. He's inviting you to stay in His hands.
Again, He picks up His creation and blows His life into it, like He did in that first garden. His glory dwells in this - a vessel for His praise. That's what we were made to be.
"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 4:7
Clay, then, is the perfect metaphor for all of this. It's no surprise that this is what the authors of the Bible chose to talk about the ways of God. His unfathomable ways become a bit more tangible to us as we allow the Word to pour into our lives and fill the cracks.
A Heart-Posture in Brokenness
Can you remember the last time you worked with clay or got your hands dirty?
Earlier this week, I was gardening and pulling out weeds. When I came into my home to wash my hands at the sink, I noticed the soil had crept in under my fingernails and the weeds had stained my hands.
I covered my hands in soap and let the water run over them until they became clean.
In the same way, we need to allow the Word to wash over us and cleanse us.
"Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart." (Psalm 24:3–4)
The heart-posture is key here.
Sometimes, there's nothing to do.
I cannot change my current circumstances.
But I do have a say in how I go through them.
This isn't merely theoretical for me: As I'm writing this, my husband and I are (still) waiting for our adoption to go through and our son to come home. My heart is heavy within me. My spirit stirs. I feel the desire to shut down and shut in.
As each day goes by with no news, the threat to let my heart grow hard becomes more and more real.
Your situation will differ from mine - the things threatening to contaminate your hands and heart will be different too.
But if we zoom out, it's the same.
Am I feeling sorry for myself, upset about my broken pot?
Am I sitting in the ashes of what was, broken in despair?
"Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes." -Job 2:8
Am I keeping my broken pieces hidden away, in a little zip-lock baggie, hoping nobody notices - or can I bring them to Him? Can I feel the feelings with faith?
God the Potter's Hands are Open to You
"Where the river flows everything will live." - Ezekiel 47:9
Only you know the places where your own heart has grown hard and calloused - unable to experience His soft touch. Only you know the pain you carry deep inside where no one can see.
Your light might be dim in this season - your cracks bare and open for all to see, like mine.
The Lord's invitation for you today is to come to Him.
You do not need to heal yourself before you're ready to come. Come to the waters (Isaiah 55); come as you are.
Undone. Broken. In pieces.
It sounds like saying: "Lord, here I am. This moment. Right here. Right now. I just cannot carry this alone. I simply do not have the words. I need You. I need Your healing touch, Your comfort, Your restoration."
To be near Him is to allow Him to work living water into those places of hurt and bring restoration where there are cracks in the clay.
Clay is shaped by remaining in the Potter's hands - not in any other way.
Psalm 23:2–3 "He leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul."
May God the Potter refresh everything that feels broken beyond repair, and may you lean on Him - as the Potter's wheel spins you around and He shapes you into a vessel to hold His Spirit and proclaim His glory.
May the same hands that formed you from dust hold you as you come undone.
If today's reflection stirred something in your heart, you don't have to leave it here. Let's land it in praxis:
I wrote a short contemplative guide called Wholehearted for seasons exactly like this one. It's not a book about trying harder. It's an invitation to surrender every part of your life into the Potter's hands, one small step at a time.
This website is home to contemplative faith materials like this one, born from real life and hands-on faith. Beyond Sunday. You're welcome to try one out with my free Workbook on Living as a Wholehearted Follower.
Wholeheartedly surrendering to God is to become soft. It is to be the clay, not the stone.
Print out your free workbook today and spend ten minutes prayerfully working through it.
Below is an excerpt from the extended edition of that Wholehearted book:
"Surrender is saying: Lord, I will trust what You say more than I will trust my circumstances. I will do whatever You have for me in this season, faithfully. I will keep looking towards You for cues when it’s time for things to change. My life is in Your hands. I don’t have to live according to what makes sense to the world. Your ways are higher than my own."
Ultimately, being the clay looks like surrendering every area of your life before God. That is why I wrote this short e-book. It takes you through tangible areas of life and leads you into what it might look like to become soft in each aspect - whether it's finances or family.
You can read more about the Wholehearted Contemplative Guide here:
P.S. If you enjoyed this article and would like to stay in touch, I want to invite you to join my newsletter by leaving your email below. Let's continue to abide in Him and allow Him to shape us into what glorifies Him.
Where in the Bible does it speak about God as the Potter?
Isaiah 64:8, Jeremiah 18:6, Isaiah 29:16, Isaiah 45:9, Romans 9:20-23, Job 10:8-9
What does it mean to 'soften' yourself?
This is about a heart posture. Instead of being hardheaded (stubborn), set in your ways, or harsh - you are gentle, malleable, and soft. You can bend without breaking. You welcome resistance, like a rubber band versus a ruler.
What does it practically look like to not resist change?
There's a difference between going with the flow and accepting it. Imagine a wooden stick being pulled along a rushing river, crushing against stones and being pulled under the current again and again. Now, imagine a sailboat being pulled along on the sea. You need to hoist your sails and trust that the wind (the Spirit) will lead you to where you need to go. Once the wind is pulling you along, you need to lean into it and not push against it.
Why does the Bible compare us to clay?
We were made from dust. We are held in the Maker's hand. We are constantly being shaped by Him. We are softened by living water. We are made into something beautiful - a vessel of honor.
What does the pottery kiln represent?
After the piece of pottery is shaped by the Potter, it goes into the kiln. This is where the opposite of what this article discovered happens: Now, the clay becomes hard. Heat and fire causes it to crystalize and find its final form. It is perfect, shaped into a vessel for a specific purpose.
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