Precious
Moving to Oklahoma from Iowa in the mid-90s was like the shock of jumping into an ice-cold pool.
There was the political campaign commercial where one candidate boasted, “He didn’t run with the wolves or howl with the dogs.” Whatever that meant. Or the High School football game where our team was “way down yonder in the paw paw patch." My guess was that wasn't good. Churches we visited had Brother So and So for the Pastor, and “Amens” regularly punctuated the sermon. A small group leader asked my husband if he'd ever been coon huntin'? And did you know that the three kings who visited Jesus came from a fire? All the great men were “fine," and the great women were "Just as precious as they could be.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be that kind of precious. It gave me the same feeling as a bite of a too-rich chocolate cake.
Some years later, I heard of another kind of “precious.” We went on a milestone anniversary trip and, on the trip, did a little jewelry shopping. Due to my indecision, we became friends with a jeweler, a man from India named Petr. One day, when we were the only ones in the shop, Petr quietly whispered that he wanted to show us something from the back room, a "museum quality" precious stone. With light shining in, we admired the beautiful multi-carat sapphire.
The stone was highly valued, costly, rare, and prized. Did you know that these are the very same words God uses to define His children?
In Isaiah 43:4, God tells us, "Since you are precious in My sight." This word precious in Hebrew means highly valued, esteemed, and prized. We're not precious and hidden in a back room. We're precious and always in His sight. We are precious in the best kind of way!
We are precious because we are sons and daughters of the One who the Scripture says is “a choice stone, a precious cornerstone.” His “precious blood” redeemed us (1 Peter 2:6, 1 Peter 1:19).
Jesus, our "precious cornerstone," the foundation stone of our faith, is also a “tested stone.” We are also tested and tried. We are precious, and we are becoming precious through various testing and trials.
Peter, who understood living in life's fires, puts it this way: “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which perishes though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7).
We are that “museum-quality" precious stone: highly valued, esteemed, costly, rare, and prized!
Precious yet tested to reflect the light of His love even more fully. May we, as His precious children, bask in the remarkable things God has done for us and submit to His refining, even in this hour.