Paul lists the pressures honestly: hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. Then the miracle conjunctions: not crushed, not in despair, not abandoned, not destroyed. Four blows land, and four times the sentence refuses to end the way the world expected.

The power is not in the jar. It never was. Today, let that be relief instead of insult, because clay was always the plan.

Elihu and Paul agree across the centuries: God does His deepest speaking inside affliction, not around it. He speaks to them in their affliction. Hard pressed but not crushed. The pressure is real, and it is precisely where the treasure shows through the clay.

So retire the fantasy of the unbreakable jar. God chose clay on purpose, so nobody could confuse the container with the power. Your cracks are not disqualifying you from carrying the treasure. In Paul's math, they are how the light gets seen.