Jewels

I heard someone call my name yesterday, and when I turned to look I saw a young woman who I recognized immediately. She had grown so much since I last saw her more than four years ago when I was still working with an after school program that she attended, but the way she smiled at me was the same smile and it brought back the memories so strongly that I knew who she was. I had been thinking I would walk a different way, to go by one of the sites where I often work to say hello, but I felt a strong pull by the Spirit to walk another way, and then I heard a voice call my name. When I worked in an after school program, I loved all of the young people who the Lord put into my care. When I see them my heart still feels a strong love for them, and at the time that I left the Lord had told me that I had to go, or else I would never have been able to leave them.

The word that the Lord gave me when He told me I had to go was John 12:24. At the time I was sitting on a bus, arguing with Him, asking Him why I had to go, and He gave me the verse, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it produces much grain.” In this passage, Christ is referring to His own death on the Cross and His resurrection that will produce a rich harvest both in the numbers of people who will be saved through His death and resurrection and in the way that He will become the bread of life to those people. But when He gave it to me that day on the bus, He meant something very personal to me and that situation. He wanted me to know that I had to leave that place – that my presence there and that season of my life needed to die, to come to an end – so that the youth that I worked with could move on to their new places in life and so that I could move onto mine. He also promised me that I wouldn’t be leaving them forever – that He was expanding my territory as Jabez in his prayer asked the Lord to do. (1 Chronicles 4:10) Since that time I have seen those same young people, as they are growing, at different times, and each time I see them it is the same, I hear someone call my name, and then I see the smile, and I am amazed at what God has done in their life.

The Lord has been speaking to me that there is another change coming, and yesterday morning that same verse was in the Voice Verse of the Day that I get through BibleGateway.com. Here it is in the Voice translation, “I tell you the truth: unless a grain of wheat is planted in the ground and dies, it remains a solitary seed. But when it is planted, it produces in death a great harvest.” I was running late yesterday morning and I didn’t have time to look at my emails before I left home. And that of course was in the Lord’s plan. The young woman I saw yesterday is proof of what He told me more than four years ago, and then when I got home and saw the verse I knew that though I am unsure of what will come next during this time, I can trust Him that He will work it all out for the good because I have always been able to trust Him to do that.

After I saw the beautiful young woman, as I continued on my way the scripture the Lord gave me the day before that I had written about in yesterday’s blog came into my mind and the tears started to come, “Lift up your eyes, look around and see; all these gather together and come to you. As I live, says the Lord, ‘you shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament, and bind them on you as a bride does.’” (Isaiah 49:18). In different translations I think that passage is even more beautiful, and it speaks even more clearly to me, “Look around you and see, for all your children will come back to you. As surely as I live,” says the Lord, ‘they will be like jewels or like bridal ornaments for you to display.’” (New Living Translation), “Lift up your eyes and look around. All of them gather together and come to you. As I live,” says the Lord, ‘you will put them on like objects of beauty. You will tie them on as a bride does.’” (New Life Version), “Look up and look around you. All your children are gathering to return to you.’ The Lord says, ‘As surely as I live, your children will be like jewels that a bride wears proudly.’” (New Century Version). Each translation has its own beauty and meaning to me. These beautiful children that I did not want to leave, the Lord made a promise to me that they would be returned to me, and now He is fulfilling that promise with bright and shining jewels of grace and beauty.

I was talking to a friend of mine about the uncertainty we both feel for the future, because we know that God has been speaking to us that things will be changing in our lives and we don’t know exactly how or when. But I said something to her that I know is a message for myself from the Spirit, and that is that life is never certain. We can make our plans and think that we know what we’re doing and what will happen, but then something can happen that can change it all in a moment. The only thing that is certain is that we can trust in God, because He is the same yesterday, today and forever, and He never changes. (Hebrews 13:8) James 4:13-14 tells us, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”

The book of James can seem harsh at times in comparison with some of the other writers in the New Testament. But when you look back in the Old Testament, there are those  prophets who wrote beautifully and those who were more harsh. The Bible catches us like that, God draws us in and makes His points to us when we most need to hear them. Sometimes they are not things that we want to hear, and so He draws us in with sweetness and love, and then speaks that word that helps to cleanse us from the way our own minds can think. James 4:11-12 tells us, “Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?” When I was talking to my friend about uncertainty, we were also talking about people who we could not trust, people who had hurt us and who it was hard to forgive, and I said to her that one of the hardest things about being a Christian is that we do need to forgive and not judge. It is so hard to do that, but it is so necessary, because when we are able to forgive and pray for someone who has wronged us or who has done wrong to others, we are opening up the possibility that God could and does forgive that person just as He can and does forgive us, and that means that person could actually be redeemed. They could actually change for the better, miraculously, just as God has changed us.

We can’t ever know what tomorrow will bring – we can’t even know, really, from one moment to the next. But if we trust in God and try our best to live by His word, then whatever tomorrow or the next moment brings, we can know He will bring us through it and show us the best way to walk.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan