Who Is Forming You?
When Hatred Tries To Shape The Clay
“Yet You, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, You are the potter.” — Isaiah 64:8
There is a quiet danger when hatred begins circling a person's heart like buzzards over a meal.
We may think we are free because we are against them.
We may even believe our hatred is protecting us from becoming like them.
But hatred rarely leaves us untouched.
If someone holds that much space in our thoughts, reactions, conversations, and emotions, they are still shaping us. They may not be close in a relational sense, but they are still close to the clay.
And over time, we may begin taking on the very shape of what wounded us.
Hardness. Suspicion. Defensiveness. Contempt. Distance.
Not because we wanted to become that way, but because we stay too long in the hands of what hurt us.
When Darkness Shapes Our Sight
John says that whoever hates a brother or sister walks in darkness and does not know where they are going.
Hatred does not only affect how we see the other person. It affects how we see everything. It narrows the road.
It trains the heart to react.
It makes love feel unsafe and mercy feel unreasonable.
And that is not the life Abba created us to live.
The Hands Of The Potter
Isaiah gives us a better image.
We are clay, but not abandoned clay.
We are in the hands of Abba Father, the Potter.
His hands are not harsh, hurried, or careless. They are hands of mercy and forgiveness, hands that know how to soften what hatred tried to harden.
Forgiveness does not call wrong things right. It simply refuses to let what wounded us keep forming us.
Love Forms Differently
The Father is not shaping you into the opposite of your wound.
He is shaping you into the image of His Son.
And His Son is love.
The hatred may have shaped a season, but it does not get to name your future.
The Potter still has His hands on you, and His hands know how to make beauty live again.
Reflection
Who or what has been shaping my responses lately?
Where has hatred hardened what love wants to heal?
What would it look like to willingly place my heart in Abba’s hands?
Prayer