Shining for God’s Glory

I remember having a great time enjoying God’s creation whilst walking on a beach in Scotland.  As I walked, I started looking at the shells on the beach. Suddenly I saw what looked like a beautiful turquoise coloured piece of glass. I picked it up and found that it was just a normal piece of clear glass that was worn smooth by the sea and sand. When it was in the sand, it caught the sun’s light and reflected it back and was beautiful and a unique colour. Outside of that setting, it was very plain.

This made me think of how God puts us in a place to reflect His glory. I thought of Proverbs 25:11 which says, ‘A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver’. Although the verse is talking about having the right word for someone, it seems to me that it’s also saying that it’s important to be in the right setting.

As I read today’s main scripture verse, I thought about all the things that piece of glass had gone through. It was once a part of something else, probably a glass bottle. It had been broken, discarded, tossed about by the sea and rubbed by the sand. But in God’s kindness, He put that piece of glass in just the right place to catch the sun’s reflection and catch my eye with the beauty of it. He spoke to me through that seemingly meaningless little piece of glass.

Each of us goes through times of suffering in our lives. We can fight against the hard times and become bitter, or we can allow God to polish us through these circumstances, and allow Him to put us in a place where we can shine for Him and then He can use us to speak to someone passing by.

Let’s make a choice today to persevere through suffering, and let God polish us and make us beautiful, to reflect His glory in the right setting.