Jars Of Clay Quotes

They came back To widows, To fatherless children, To screams, to sobbing. The men came back As little clay jars Full of sharp cinders.

How much more of the mosque, of prayer and fasting? Better go drunk and begging round the taverns. Khayyam, drink wine, for soon this clay of yours Will make a cup, bowl, one day a jar. When once you hear the roses are in bloom, Then is the time, my love, to pour the wine; Houris and palaces and Heaven and Hell- These are but fairy-tales, forget them all.

SEEK MY FACE more and more. You are really just beginning your journey of intimacy with Me. It is not an easy road, but it is a delightful and privileged way: a treasure hunt. I am the Treasure, and the Glory of My Presence glistens and shimmers along the way. Hardships are part of the journey too. I mete them out ever so carefully, in just the right dosage, with a tenderness you can hardly imagine. Do not recoil from afflictions, since they are among My most favored gifts. Trust Me and don’t be afraid, for I am your Strength and Song. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek. PSALM 27 : 8 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 “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.” ISAIAH 12 : 2

Referencing 2 Corinthians 4:6, Robert Hewitt compares jars of clay in the first century to the same value we would put on a cardboard box. Joni Eareckson Tada queries whether we would question God's right to leave some holes in the box in order to give glimpses of the treasure inside

we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. (2 Cor. 4:7–11 NIV)

A wheel may have thirty spokes, but its usefulness lies in the empty hub. A jar is formed from clay, but its usefulness lies in the empty center. A room is made from four walls, but its usefulness lies in the space between.

For years, all we do is feed. We don’t control what our parents feed us for dinner, we don’t control what they read to us (or don’t read to us) or what they let us watch. We are like jars of wet clay, and we are loaded full with every kind of tale—films; books; TV shows; stories from friends, parents, grandparents. And as we dry, we take the shape of what has been dumped inside of us.

And after that they had gone through many streets they came to a little door that was set in a wall that was covered with a pomegranate tree. And the old man touched the door with a ring of graved jaspar and it opened, and they went down five steps of brass into a garden filled with black poppies and green jars of burnt clay.

We have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:7

jars of clay

But God is never limited by our limitations. In fact, he enjoys putting his great power into ordinary containers. The Bible says, “We are like clay jars in which this treasure is stored. The real power comes from God and not from us.”5 Like common pottery, we are fragile and flawed and break easily.

6For God, who said,  m “Let light shine out of darkness,”  n has shone in our hearts to give  o the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Treasure in Jars of Clay 7But we have this treasure in  p jars of clay,  q to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

Mismatched wooden shelves crammed with dusty glass vials, tiny reed baskets, and crumbling ceramic jars covered the walls. Lengths of dried herbs, animal parts, and objects she couldn't identify hung from the ceiling while clay amphorae competed for the small amount of floor space. Yaqub knew his inventory like the lines of his palms, and listening to his stories of ancient Magi or the hot spice lands of the Hind transported her to worlds she could hardly imagine.

Amazing tributaries feeding where the rivers will never flow....

Three tasks the dust-wife had given her. Sew a cloak of owlcloth and nettles, build a dog of cursed bones, and catch moonlight in a jar of clay.

Although the wheel has thirty spokes its utility lies in the emptiness of the hub. The jar is made by kneading clay, but its usefulness consists in its capacity. A room is made by cutting out windows and doors through the walls, but the space the walls contain measures the room's value

It is up to the craftsman, whether he wants to make a cauldron or a pot. He wants to make a jar or a jug. Truth may only come from the hand of the craftsman and not vice versa. No matter how hard the clay desires to make itself something, it will never exist without the craftsman's blessing.

I was curious about the foreign foods I would come to know as chorizo, fire-roasted piquillo peppers, La Mancha saffron sealed in blue clay jars, Serrano ham, and pickled eggplant. That kitchen smelled like a cross between my maestro's kitchen and Borgia's. It had the clean airiness I was accustomed to, but a tang of briny olives and smoked meats flavored the air.

There,” said the dust-wife. “You have given me moonlight in a jar of clay. Well done. That’s the third task.” “But…” Marra stared at her and the little clay jar with the moonlight inside. “I didn’t earn it. I didn’t do anything.” “It was an impossible task,” said the dust-wife. “The other two should have been impossible, but here you are with a bone dog and a cloak made of owlcloth and nettles. Catching the moon would have broken you, though. That’s not a task for mortals who want to keep their hearts.

After all, a kiss between real lovers is not some type of contract, a neatly defined moment of pleasure, something obtained by greedy conquest, or any kind of clear saying of how it is. It is a grief-drenched hatching of two hearts into some ecstatic never-before-seen bird whose new uncategorizable form, unrecognized by the status quo, gives the slip to Death's sure rational deal. For love is a delicious and always messy extension of life that unfrantically outgrows mortality's rigid insistence on precise and efficient definition. Having all the answers means you haven't really ecstatically kissed or lived, thereby declaring the world defined and already finished. Loving all the questions on the other hand is a vitality that makes any length of life worth living. Loving doesn't mean you know all the notes and that you have to play all the notes, it just means you have to play the few notes you have long and beautifully. Like the sight of a truly beautiful young woman, smooth and gliding, melting hearts at even a distant glimpse, that no words, no matter how capable, can truly describe; a woman whose beauty is only really known by those who take a perch on the vista of time to watch the years of life speak out their long ornate sentences of grooves as they slowly stretch into her smoothness, wrinkling her as she glides struggling, decade by decade, her gait mitigated by a long trail of heavy loads, joys, losses, and suffering whose joint-aching years of traveling into a mastery of her own artistry of living, becomes even more than beauty something about which though we are even now no more capable of addressing than before, our admiration as original Earth-loving human beings should nonetheless never remain silent. And for that beauty we should never sing about, but only sing directly to it. Straightforward, cold, and inornate description in the presence of such living evidence of the flowering speech of the Holy in the Seed would be death of both the beauty and the speaker. Even if we always fail when we speak, we must be willing to fail magnificently, for even an eloquent failure, if in the service of life, feeds the Divine. Is it not a magical thing, this life, when just a little ash, cinder, and unclear water can arrange themselves into a beautiful old woman who sways, lifts, kisses, loves, sickens, argues, loses, bears up under it all, and, wrinkling, still lives under all that and yet feeds the Holy in Nature by just the way she moves barefoot down a path? If we can find the hearts, tongues, and brightness of our original souls, broken or not, then no matter from what mess we might have sprung today, we would be like those old-time speakers of life; every one of us would have it in our nature to feel obligated by such true living beauty as to know we have to say something in its presence if only for our utter feeling of awe. For, finally learning to approach something respectfully with love, slowly with the courtesy of an ornate indirectness, not describing what we see but praising the magnificence of her half-smiles of grief and persistent radiance rolling up from the weight-bearing thumping of her fine, well-oiled dusty old feet shuffling toward the dawn reeds at the edge of her part of the lake to fetch a head-balanced little clay jar of water to cook the family breakfast, we would know why the powerful Father Sun himself hurries to get his daily glimpse of her, only rising early because she does.

Half the world is made of tiny communities that have grown up around nothing more than a crossroads market, or a good clay pit, or a bend of river strong enough to turn a mill wheel. Sometimes these towns are prosperous. Some have rich soil and generous weather. Some thrive on the trade moving through them. The wealth of these places is obvious. The houses are large and well-mended. People are friendly and generous. The children are fat and happy. There are luxuries for sale: pepper and cinnamon and chocolate. There is coffee and good wine and music at the local inn. Then there are the other sort of towns. Towns where the soil is thin and tired. Towns where the mill burned down, or the clay was mined out years ago. In these places the houses are small and badly patched. The people are lean and suspicious, and wealth is measured in small, practical ways. Cords of firewood. A second pig. Five jars of blackberry preserve.

They would catch the lightning bugs that came up out of the laurels lining the creek and then put them into mason jars or wear them as glow rings on their fingers.

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: 2 “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? 3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels[a] shouted for joy? 8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? 12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, 13 that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? 14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. 15 The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. 16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? 17 Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? 18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. 19 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? 20 Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? 21 Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! 22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, 23 which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? 24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? 25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, 26 to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, 27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? 28 Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? 29 From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens 30 when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? 31 “Can you bind the chains[b] of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? 32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons[c] or lead out the Bear[d] with its cubs? 33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s[e] dominion over the earth? 34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? 35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? 36 Who gives the ibis wisdom[f] or gives the rooster understanding?[g] 37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens 38 when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together? 39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions 40 when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? 41 Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?

Sample your soils Good garden soil contains 30 to 50% sand, 30 to 50% silt, and 20 to 30% clay, with 5 to 10% organic matter. You can find out how close your soils come to this ideal, loam. All it takes is a quart jar, two cups of water, and a tablespoon of a water softener, such as Calgon liquid. You will also need soil from the top 12 inches (30 centimeters) of the areas you want tested, be it your vegetable garden, flower bed, or lawn. Mix each soil sample with two cups of water and a tablespoon of water softener. Put it in the jar, close the jar, and shake it vigorously, so that all the particles become suspended in the water. Then put the jar down and let things settle. After a couple of minutes, any sand particles in your soil will have settled out. It takes a few hours for the smallest silt particles to settle on top of this sand. Much of the smallest clay-sized particles will actually stay in suspension for up to a day. Organics in the soil will float to the top and remain there for an even longer period. Wait 24 hours and then measure the thickness of each of the layers with a ruler. To determine the percentages of each, divide the depth or thickness of each layer by the total depth of all three layers and then multiply the answer by 100. Once you know what percentages of each material are in your soil, you can begin to physically change it if need be. How to do this is discussed in the second half of the book.

we have this treasure in  p jars of clay,  q to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

The tricky part for me is remembering to give God all the glory and keep none for myself. That’s why “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”8 Boaz took no credit for his kindness, nor did Ruth. Even Naomi, who at first blessed the landowner, praised God when she learned the man’s name. We can follow her fine example, giving God the credit for “every good and perfect gift.”9

Whatever greatness there is in him (and it is there), whatever constructive influence he has exerted on the Christian church (and it has been incalculable), he himself would attribute to the sovereign grace of God working through yet another “clay jar” (2 Cor. 4:7).

There is something noble about an assembly of believers in simple clothes, where the lobby isn’t filled with people saying, “You look pretty” to one another. Maybe looking pretty isn’t the catalyst for the Spirit’s movement. Perhaps an obsessive occupation with dresses and hair and shoes detracts us from the point of the gathering: a fixation on Jesus. When the jars of clay remember they are jars of clay, the treasure within gets all the glory, which seems somehow more fitting.

In the Libyan desert, fused glass and radioactive tektites were discovered and analyzed by Dr R V Dolphin. His discoveries are discussed by Colin Wilson and Rand Flem-Ath: After studying the Libyan desert glass, Dolphin suggested that for the ancient Phoenicians to have worked with temperatures equivalent to 6,000 degrees Celsius, they may have known the secret of atomic power – (The Atlantis Blueprint) Six thousand degrees Celsius is only two thousand degrees less than the temperature of the sun. At the same location jars and vases were found that fashioned in the same manner as earthenware. However, these artifacts were not made from clay, but the hardest substances known, such as basalt, quartz and diorite. Necks of vases were so narrow no hand could possibly have fashioned their interiors. High temperatures must have been employed, but experts are mystified as to how that was accomplished. Exceptionally high temperatures are required to remove impurities from gold. So scientists found themselves perplexed after necklaces, found in Libya, turned out to be one hundred percent pure gold. Doctor Dolphin accepted the truth and openly admitted what most of his academic colleagues could not, namely, that the secrets of atomic energy were known in prehistoric times. Charles Berlitz collated information on similar cases in Mesopotamia and Scotland. He wrote: After finding layers of Babylonian and Sumerian artifacts, the archaeologists had passed through 14 feet of clay which indicated a prolonged flood. Below this strata was a level of fused glass, the same kind found at Alamogordo in Texas after the A-bomb blasts – (Atlantis: The Eighth Continent) In west Scotland there is a fort that has one of its sides completely fused into glass, in the same manner. It had received some intense heat, but not lightening – ibid

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

Zhian, is that you? I focus the words on the clay jar above Darian. The reply comes like a clap of thunder GET ME OUT OF HERE! I stumble at the force of his words, and Darian steps forward to catch me. “Wine catching up to you?” he asks, grinning. I just nod distractedly, stiffening a little when his hands slide up my arms. Zhian, I’m here to help you. GET ME OUT NOW! Darian’s hands are far too familiar, one on my back now, the other cupping my jaw. His touch is repulsive, his heartbeat erratic and too fast. I feel assaulted on all sides: by Zhian’s shouting, by the jinn clamoring, by Darian’s desire. “You really are quite pretty,” he says, his eyes dropping to my lips. “I’ve shown you something secret. Now what are you going to show me?” Steeling myself, I grasp his coat and step forward, backing him into the shelves, and around him bottles shake dangerously. “Easy,” he cautions, but his eyes brighten greedily. Our faces are just inches apart, his eyes locked on mine. “You’re a feisty one. I knew it the moment I saw you. No wonder Rahzad likes to keep you close.” “What about the princess?” I murmur, working a hand behind him as if to thread my fingers in his oiled hair. “Caspida hardly appreciates the finer pleasures in life. I, on the other hand, have a king’s appetite.” He kisses me forcefully, stepping away from the wall, and I’m barely able to grab Zhian’s jar before it’s out of reach. No bigger than my hand, it’s simple to let it slip down my sleeve. The jinn prince rages inside, but I ignore him and focus on the human trying to force his tongue down my throat. I can feel myself hovering on the very edge of the lamp’s boundary. Ripples of smoke race under my skin as I strain to keep from shifting, the effort bringing tears to my eyes. I shove Darian hard, and he shouts as he slams into the wall of bottled jinn. A few topple from their shelves, and panic springs into his eyes as he struggles to catch them all. “Bleeding gods, you whore!” he growls. “Are you mad?” “My master is probably looking for me,” I gasp. “I should go.” I turn and flee the room, letting out a soft, relieved cry as the lamp’s pull on me slackens. Darian pursues too quickly for me to shift into a more speedy form. Zhian’s jar rattling in my sleeve, I hurry through the dark crypt and up the stairs, the prince close on my heels. “Stop!” he shouts. “Or I’ll have you whipped!” Sister! Zhian cries. Set me free and I will devour the wretch!

The glue of His love patches our wounds so we can keep serving as His vessels, His treasures in fragile clay jars. Despite our flaws, we are worthy to share His love.

When God fills us with His Holy Spirit, we are filled with love. He desires to pour Himself out through our lives, our jars of clay, into His world, which aches for Him. His all-surpassing power is given to us, not so we can hoard it for ourselves, storing it in a darkened room somewhere, from which it trickles out in small quantities. It is given to us to be splashed out in the light, for the joy of all people everywhere. We can’t love God’s way without being filled with Him. If we try it on our own, we end up exhausted and burned out. I’ve done it; it doesn’t work. Only when we let His love pour into us and let it spill out from deep within us will His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. —2 Corinthians 4:7

Like that cracked and broken pot, we humans are flawed. We have been damaged by pain, persecution, and disappointment. Yet God sees the value in each of us and continues to use us as His messengers, witnesses, and examples. The glue of His love patches our wounds so we can keep serving as His vessels, His treasures in fragile clay jars. Despite our flaws, we are worthy to share His love.

Truth But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:7–9) Friend to Friend My husband and I were in a waiting period. His company had gone through a merger and was collapsing positions and territories, which left his employment in jeopardy. For months we didn’t know if Brad would keep his job or if he would need to look for another one. During that time, God bid us to trust Him. Choosing to trust God is so daily, isn’t it? When I looked only at the what-ifs of Brad

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (2 Cor. 4:7–10)

7We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.* This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. +

AS THIS YEAR DRAWS TO A CLOSE, receive My Peace. This is still your deepest need, and I, your Prince of Peace, long to pour Myself into your neediness. My abundance and your emptiness are a perfect match. I designed you to have no sufficiency of your own. I created you as a jar of clay, set apart for sacred use. I want you to be filled with My very Being, permeated through and through with Peace.

So he simply sat there in the courtyard in a daze, surrounded by peach blossoms in full bloom, holding the clay jar that his little shidi had brought him all the way from the cave. A long while later, he sighed and slapped himself across the face, cursing in a low voice. “You good-for-nothing.

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). The apostle Paul was speaking about the struggles he and his co-laborers were suffering as they spread the truth of the gospel. They were feeling defeated and broken. Paul drew this comparison that humans are like jars made of clay in which God keeps His treasure. The treasure is the light of God that can shine in the darkness. When a jar of clay cracks under pressure, the light hidden inside is revealed: our faith in God. We feel broken, but our suffering is minimal compared to Jesus’ suffering on the cross. And though it often doesn’t feel this way, we also can trust that our suffering is short compared to eternity with Him. When we are where God calls us to be, He can give us the strength we need to keep going. Our determination can show others that God is omnipotent and gives us the power to survive. When we rely on God to do the work He has called us to, He can use us to exemplify perseverance to bring glory to Him.

say never start a story with a waking, but when you’ve been hard asleep for thirty years it’s difficult to know where else to begin. Start with a waking, end with a wake, maybe. Hard asleep is, I am informed, the technical term. Hard, because you’re shut down, dried out, frozen for the trip from star to star. They have it down to a fine art—takes eleven minutes, like clockwork. A whole ship full of miscreants who are desiccated down to something that can… well, I was about to say survive indefinitely, but that’s not how it goes, of course. You don’t survive. You die, but in a very specific flash-frozen way that allows for you to be restarted again more or less where you left off at the other end. After all the shunting about that would kill any body—the permanent, non-recoverable kind of kill—who wasn’t withered down. They pump you full of stuff that reinflates you to more or less your previous dimensions—you’ll note there’s a lot of more or less in this process. It is an exact science, just not one that cares about the exact you. Your thought processes don’t quite pick up where they left off. Short-term memory isn’t preserved; more recent mental pathways don’t make the cut. Start with a waking, therefore, because in that instant it’s all you’ve got, until you can establish some connection to older memories. You know who you are, but you don’t know where you are or how you got there. Which sounds terrifying but then let me tell you what you’re waking up into: actual hell. The roaring of colossal structural damage as the ship breaks up all around you. The jostling jolt as the little translucent bubble of plastic you’re travelling in is jarred loose and begins to tumble. A cacophony of vibration coming through the curved surface to you: the death throes of the vessel which has carried you all this way, out into the void, and is now fragmenting. There’s a world below that you know nothing about, not in your head right then. And above you are only the killing fields of space. The fact there’s a below and an above shows that the planet’s already won that particular battle over your soul and you’re falling.

The jar quickly drained between them, with Kimmie drinking most of it, until only the soaked flower lay at the bottom. Kimmie reached in with her fingers and brought it to Lee's face with mischief glistering in her eyes. She tickled the tip of her nose and trailed it down. Without thinking, Lee closed her eyes and parted her lips. She felt it fill her mouth like a soft spider. The petals were jellied and lush as she bit softly and chewed. The taste was an overwhelming version of the liquor itself. A phantasm of undiluted shifting flavors: honey, leaves, bubblegum, ash, blood. When she finally swallowed, she lay back on the ground with the force of it. Her skin tingled like something was coming up through her pores. Thin roots sprouted from every inch of skin that touched the grass: the back of her head, her shoulder blades, her thighs. They probed into the dirt and snaked their way down, farther into the earth, branching and spreading below her. She could feel the roots glowing. An electricity crackled through her, and she knew it was the power of the land. They were connected. She sensed the groundwater flowing below as it fed the wells of the houses tucked into the mountains. When she focused on the water itself, she could access the memories it held, of every living thing that ever made a home on this land. A dinosaur lapping from a creek with its long tongue. A prehistoric woman peering down into its reflective surface and seeing herself staring back. She could sense the coal, the natural gas, the zinc, the marble, nestled like treasure deep within the clay and stone.

Isaiah had written that this “child” would bring about a great deliverance “as on the day of Midian” (Isaiah 9:4). He was referring to the “Battle of Midian,” when, guided by God, Gideon had reduced his army in stages from 32,000 down to 300 men carrying 300 trumpets and 300 jars with torches inside them. They surrounded the Midianite camp by night, and then, on the signal, they smashed the jars—letting the light shine out—blew the trumpets, and shouted in triumph; the Midian army fled in disarray (Judges 7:1-25). Truly “the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25). Perhaps Paul was thinking about this incident when he wrote about the light of the gospel shining in the darkness in the face of Jesus Christ, and he added, “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). For this child—“little, weak and helpless,” as one carol puts it[7]—was nevertheless “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). Truly, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men” (v 25).

He had the sleeves rolled up on his bathrobe, and it was a fairly jarring, chaotic picture he painted, yet somehow he made it seem lazily elegant. Like a sculptor shaping a lump of clay with muddy hands, like feeling along the edges of rolled-out pastry dough to check its thickness, or scoring a flour-dusted bâtard—something weirdly bold and confident about it. The seductive art of Nutella, as taught by one Tonio Salone. Unnerving.

To purify your bathwater and get rid of the chlorine, place a 1-quart jar containing 3 cups bentonite clay and ½ cup powdered vitamin C next to your bathtub with a tablespoon-size measuring spoon. Shake well. Add 2 tablespoons of the mixture to bathwater and let sit for 10 minutes before bathing.

We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

LORD, YOUR PEOPLE ARE LIKE fragile clay jars, but your glory is in them—it shines through their cracks and imperfections

In the beginning of the ancient world Prometheus stole a glowing ember from the sacred fire of the gods and gave it to all mortals to protect them from the cold of night. But Zeus, the king of the gods, became angry that such a gift had been taken, and in vengeance he decided to balance the blessing of fire with a curse. He ordered Hephaestus to sculpt a woman of exquisite beauty whose destiny was to bring great sorrow upon the human race. She was to be named Pandora. As Hephaestus molded the clay into a stunning female, a primordial evil called the Atrox watched covetously from the shadows. Once she was complete, Hermes took Pandora to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus, and offered her to him, as a present from Zeus. When he saw the beautiful Pandora, Epimetheus forgot his brother's warning not to accept any gifts from the great god, and took her for his bride. For her dowry, the gods had given Pandora a huge, mysterious storage jar, but the Atrox knew what lay inside. At the wedding feast, it shrewdly aroused her curiosity and convinced her to open the lid. And when she did, countless evils flew into the world. Only hope remained inside, a consolation for all the evils that had been set free. But no one saw the demon sent by the Atrox to destroy hope and kidnap Pandora. Selene, the goddess of the Moon, however, finally heard Pandora's cries and stopped the demonic creature. The Atrox studied this defeat and envisioned a way to inflict even greater suffering upon the world. It journeyed to the edge of the night and found the three sister Fates, goddesses older than time, who spun threads that predetermined the course of every life. Once they had agreed to the Atrox's plan, their decision became irrevocable. Even great Zeus could not alter their ruling. Only Selene dared to scorn their decree, and she alone vowed to change destiny.

Walt had arrived. He ripped through the enemy line with his bare hands—throwing one rebel magician down the hallway with inhuman strength, touching another and instantly encasing the man in mummy linen. He grabbed the staff of a third rebel, and it crumbled to dust. Finally he swept his hand toward the remaining enemies, and they shrank to the size of dolls. Canopic jars—the sort used to bury a mummy’s internal organs—sprang up around each of the tiny magicians, sealing them in with lids shaped like animal heads. The poor magicians yelled desperately, banging on the clay containers and wobbling about like a line of very unhappy bowling pins. Walt turned to our friends. “Is everyone all right?” He looked like normal old Walt—tall and muscular with a confident face, soft brown eyes, and strong hands. But his clothes had changed. He wore jeans, a dark Dead Weather T-shirt, and a black leather jacket—Anubis’s outfit, sized up to fit Walt’s physique. All I had to do was lower my vision into the Duat, just a bit, and I saw Anubis standing there in all his usual annoying gorgeousness. Both of them—occupying the same space. “Get ready,” Walt told our troops. “They’ve sealed the doors, but I can—” Then he noticed me, and his voice faltered. “Sadie,” he said. “I—” “Something about opening the doors?” I demanded. He nodded mutely. “Amos is in there?” I asked. “Fighting Kwai and Jacobi and who knows what else?” He nodded again. “Then stop staring at me and open the doors, you annoying boy!” I was talking to both of them. It felt quite natural. And it felt good to let my anger out. I’d deal with those two—that one—whatever he was—later. Right now, my uncle needed me. Walt/Anubis had the nerve to smile. He put his hand on the doors. Gray ash spread across the surface. The bronze crumbled to dust.

Now we are compelled to love those we serve through a love for God that never runs dry. Why? It is His Holy Spirit who fills our jars of clay, and all we do comes from Him.

You and I are clay jars. We're dust. But God has hidden redemption in us.

For years, all we do is feed. We don’t control what our parents feed us for dinner, we don’t control what they read to us (or don’t read to us) or what they let us watch. We are like jars of wet clay, and we are loaded full with every kind of tale—films; books; TV shows; stories from friends, parents, grandparents. And as we dry, we take the shape of what has been dumped inside of us. When we begin to make our own choices, when we become an active character in our own narratives, all of that soul food is behind us. We might not even remember the stories, but they groomed and molded us while we were still unfired clay.

almost like ram horns coming out of the top of the head. It looked to me to be standing before some sort of opening. Drawn at its feet were multiple prone figures crudely shaped like gingerbread men—only etched like skeletons. No doubt they were supposed to be dead. Then there were others, similarly drawn, but upright—dead but standing, like zombies or the walking dead. Towards the outer edges of the scene were other figures much like the one in the middle, only with less detail and not as fantastic. Here and there was some other stuff that may have been the flames of a fire, like a campfire, and what looked to be urns or jars, the clay kind.

7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We

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 God’s glory displayed 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 Cor. 4:6–7)