10/25/2026
The Tea Cup Story. A parable based upon Jeremiah 18 
There was a couple that used to go to England to shop in beautiful stores. They both liked antiques and pottery, especially teacups. This was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. One day in a beautiful shop they saw an exquisite teacup. They asked the clerk, “May we see that? we’ve never seen one quite so lovely.”
As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke. “You don’t understand,” it said. “I haven’t always been a teacup. There was a time when I was red, and I was clay. My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over, and I yelled out, ‘let me alone,’ but, he only smiled and said, ‘Not yet.’ Then I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly spun around, and around, and around. Stop it! I’m getting dizzy!’ I screamed.
The Master Is At Work In You
“But the master only nodded and said, ‘Not yet’. then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I wondered why he wanted to burn me, and I yelled and knocked on the door. I could see him through the opening, and I could read his lips, as he shook his head, “Not yet.”
“Finally the door opened, he put me on a shelf, and I began to cool. ‘There that’s better’, I said. And he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. ‘Stop it, stop it!’ I cried. He only nodded, ‘Not yet.’ Then suddenly he put me back into the oven, not like the first one. This was twice as hot, and I knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded.
I screamed. I cried. All the time I could see him through the opening nodding his head and saying, ‘Not yet.’
“Then I knew there wasn’t any hope. I would never make it. I was ready to give up. But the door opened, and he took me out and placed me on a shelf. One hour later he handed me a mirror and said, ‘Look at yourself.’ And I did. I said, ‘That’s not me, that couldn’t be me. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful.’
“I want you to remember, then, he said, ‘I know it hurts to be rolled and patted, but if I had left you alone, you’d have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I knew it hurt and was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn’t put you there, you would have cracked.
“I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn’t done that, you never would have hardened; you would not have held. Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first began with you.'”
MORAL: God knows what He is doing for all of us. He is the Potter, and we are His clay. He will mold us and make us, so that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing, and perfect will.
