Pearls of Wisdom

Today a friend of mine, Tony, and I were talking about the love of God.

I have always struggled with God's love for me. You see, I have always felt unworthy of it. While me being unworthy of His love might be true, He loves me in spite of that. I can say that and understand it to be true, but my mind understanding it to be true and my heart believing it to be true are two totally different things.

As we were talking, Tony could see that I was truly struggling with this. I know that God impressed this on Tony's heart to share with me and it suddenly brought me closer to truly believing with my heart more than ever before.

Tony brought up the parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl. In essence, both parables talk about someone finding something of great value. Then in turn both of these people sell everything they own and purchase this new found treasure. He asked me what those parables meant to me. Honestly, it caught me off guard. I'd never spent a lot of time thinking about it. So I told him that I thought it was about my relationship to God and that I needed to see the worth in it and be willing to give up everything for it.

Tony had a different take. In fact he gave examples of how Christians in China who have face persecution have a totally different understanding of these parables. He said that I am the pearl. I am the hidden treasure. That God loved me so much that He sent His Son to "purchase" me. Jesus loved me so much, the hidden treasure that He found in the field, that He gave up everything to get me.

Me. He finds me worthy.

I can hardly fathom it. It stirs something inside of me that I cannot describe...

I am learning. Trying to accept this amazing love that He has for me. It is so hard to understand, maybe that is the point. My mind may never comprehend this love.

My hope, my prayer, is that I will stop rejecting His love. Thankfully He's not finished with me yet and He is very patient.