God’s Sapphires

During a convention a few years ago, a presentation was made by several disabled people. The main speaker, John MacArthur, came to the platform next. Perhaps he sensed that too much was being made of the presenters (whose effort was to glorify the Lord and not themselves), so he said, “In the eyes of God, each one of us is handicapped. . . .”

I thought of that yesterday after watching a fascinating and deeply touching video at GodTube. This video must be viewed right to the end and you will weep. I showed it to my husband this morning, and after my third time seeing it, we both wept.

This morning, my devotional reading takes me again to Isaiah 54:11. “O you afflicted one, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay your stones with colorful gems, and lay your foundations with sapphires.”

Those who do not believe accuse our faith as a crutch, yet I say, "Who is not limping?” MacArthur is correct; we are all handicapped. Who has not felt affliction? Who has never experienced a comfortless tempest? For some, trials last only a brief time; for others a lifetime, but everyone knows what helplessness feels like. Everyone knows the struggle to get through, to overcome, to make it to tomorrow.

But there is God. He, in the middle of our sorrows, can give us colorful gems and set our foundation with sapphires. My reading today makes me weep as the video did. It (a tad of editing) says this:

Before we can stand firm in the things of God, we must have a good foundation, something solid for our faith, our hope, our love, our all, to rest upon. This God promises to lay for us: “I will lay your foundations with sapphires.”

“A gift is a precious stone in the eyes of its possessor” (Proverbs 17:8). Every testimony that God gives to the soul, every promise brought into the heart, every manifestation of mercy, every visit of love, or application of truth, we may call a sapphire. It is indeed a precious stone, radiant with heaven’s own hue. When God lays His sapphires in the soul, they afford a solid foundation for faith. As they are laid by the hand of God Himself, they must be firm. As they are sapphires, they must be indestructible. These sapphires may be buried in the dust of carnality and worldly-mindedness. The filth and sewage, the mud and slush of our fallen nature may roll over them flood after flood. But are they injured? Is their nature changed, their value impaired, their hue tarnished, their luster faded and gone? They may be hidden from view, their setting obscured, and their faces for a while dimmed, but one ray from the Sun of righteousness will bring them again to light. One touch of the Polisher’s hand will restore all their beauty.

Our daily newspaper occasionally features a column in the religious section called “Offerings.” Today’s column expressed the author’s experience of being with a dying friend who was thankful and gracious throughout. The writer says, “People with strong religious or philosophical convictions find meaning in experiencing all the seasons of life, including suffering and death” and explains that all of life is to be embraced and experienced, not avoided or turned from. At the end, she writes,

Viktor Frankl, the great Viennese psychiatrist, said ‘ . . . everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. . . .’ And so my friend did, leaving me a lasting legacy of what it means to fully live out each season of life.

Putting all these elements together, that column, the video, memories, and the Scripture, created a mosaic that assures me that no matter how tough life is (or how easy), my Lord is with me, even carrying me, and I can experience it all with grace because of Him.