Dirt
I’m dirt. Or at least, descended from dirt. We may not be able to trace our genealogy across thousands of years, but we know that eventually we get all the way back to Adam and Eve. Eve’s origin? Constructed from the DNA taken from Adam. (Genesis 2:21-22) And Adam’s origin? Dirt. (verse 7)
Not only dirt, as we know. God took the elements in the soil and put together all the complex molecules that make up a living body, but it wasn’t yet living. The second phase was that God breathed into this body the breath (or spirit—same word) of life. Then the man was a living soul, a living being.
Our line, yours and mine, goes back to this couple, and therefore back to…dirt, plus spirit, the breath of life. It’s not exactly flattering to be told we’re dirt. But before we get to feeling too insulted, we should recall that dirt isn’t entirely without value.
In Jeremiah 18:1-6 the prophet is told by God to take Israel’s leaders and observe a potter at work. The Lord makes a parable of it, Himself being the potter, and the nation being the clay—the dirt—that the potter shapes into something useful. Later, the apostle Paul picks up the same metaphor in Romans 9:21.
So being dirt isn’t inherently a negative. In both Jeremiah and Romans, there is potential to be a useful pot. Some uses of a clay pot are “noble” or “honorable”, and others are “ignoble” or “dishonorable”. Unlike a literal lump of clay, in the parable the clay has a choice to make.
When God made Adam out of dirt, He made something of value, something He intended to be useful, a container in fact for His own breath (spirit) of life. What did this vessel do with the life given to him? He ruined it.
One thing to bear in mind: A ceramic pot is fragile, it can be broken. This comes into play later in Jeremiah’s enacted parable (19:1-11), and it’s once again picked up by Paul:
But 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)
God intentionally made us breakable, and then gave the choice to us. Adam and Eve chose badly, and so do we, all too often. When Jeremiah shattered the clay vessel, it was broken irretrievably. Once again, by grace, the literal isn’t the whole story. We aren’t irretrievable. In large measure, this is because our Maker “knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:14)
In fact God has promised to re-create us, out of the dirt to which we return when we die. Daniel tells us, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Daniel 12:2)
God made humanity out of dirt, animated by His spirit. And He will re-make us out of the dirt when He raises the dead at Christ’s return. This time, the vessel will be unbreakable! Re-read 1 Corinthians 15:47-54—going through it line by line, giving it your full, thoughtful attention.
In light of all this, I’m content to be dirt. Still fragile for now, still sometimes spoiling what the Potter is trying to do with me. Hoping that in some way I can be a useful vessel, a container that is worth having His breath entrusted to it. And in hope of being changed, perhaps being remade out of the dirt, but either way changed into something imperishable, incorruptible, immortal.
Love, Paul