ONLY THE BEST

 From Google Images

Because I want what is best for my children, I can understand that my heavenly Father wants what is best for me. I have three children, who each have children of their own. They love their children and are guiding and nurturing them to love the Lord. I am blessed by them every day, even if they don’t live close to us. I delight in their successes and their victories. But… I also feel their hurts and their pains as they face difficulties and go through the valleys of life. To remove those would be to deprive them the opportunity to learn life’s lessons for themselves. Certainly it would be easier to leave difficult situations than to stay and grow in grace through them. 

Yet, growing in grace is the purpose and plan of God our lives. “He gives only the best to those who leave the choice with Him,” I once read. When we know that God is on our side, we can face anything and everything. This I know, that God is for me. I rest on that promise. God wants only the best; He wants Christ to be formed in my children. That, too, is what I as a mother want for them. 

That reminds me that pearls are made in a wonderful and fascinating way. The oyster literally takes the grain of sand that causes it irritation and pain and wraps it in layer after layer of mother of pearl. Instead of trying to escape the pain, it works with it until a pearl is produced. That worthless piece of sand has been the catalyst for growing a precious gem that has great value. 

God gives each of us opportunities to take the people and circumstances in life that irritate us and cover them with layers of grace, layers of patience, layers of faith, layers of loyalty, layers of compassion, and layers of love. This type of work does not just happen instantly. It is a long and arduous work; but it will ultimately, perhaps years down the road, produce in us only the best. The irritant may still be an irritant, but it will have produced something beautiful and of everlasting value in our own character. Let’s seek His face until He be seen in ours.