Pearls - Amy Lawrence

Pearls

It’s funny the things I remember from my youth that are now perceived in a very different way with more years’ experience. I used to think pearls were for older women. (It’s because I only saw them on women older than myself, and it might also have had something to do with the fact that I thought 30 was old.) Because of this perception, I wouldn’t wear pearls. I felt I was too young, and pearls were a future accomplishment I hadn’t earned yet. I told myself that I had to be a woman to wear them. I had to be an independent adult with my very own set of pearls that screamed, “I am responsible enough to make my own decisions.” I bought a string of cream- colored, freshwater gems just a few months before my wedding. As a wedding gift, my parents bought me earrings to match. I still have those earrings and that string of pearls. Each gleaming orb on that string, to me, represents the journey of experiences I have had from the moment I began thinking of the person I would be.

Most people don’t start off as kids thinking, “Okay, here’s the itinerary I plan on following to become (insert dream here)”. I was a weird kid. Now I’m a weird adult. I’m not unusual because I had a plan and followed it, no. Lots of people do that. I’m unusual because I knew at a young age that this road we call life isn’t a road that we create. That timeless phrase, “I’m going to make my own way,” spoken by countless people, had a mocking note in it to me - like anyone saying it had no idea that the God of the Universe is the Waymaker. Jeremiah the prophet wrote, “Oh, Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.” (Jer. 10:23) The majority follows the dream, not God. Oh, yeah, they’ll say something like, “God got me here,” as if every decision they made was with God in their mind and not their own selfishness. I’m not saying it’s wrong to have a dream, and I’m not saying I never tried to put God in the backseat. At some point, we all have. What’s wrong is when we think God caters to our dreams. In my mind, my dream, God was the decision. Every choice I made was made with the knowledge that in the end, I would answer to God for my choices. I wanted to be a marine biologist. There are no churches in the middle of the ocean where I wanted to go. At one brief phase in my life, I wanted to go to Hollywood. I came to the conclusion quickly that was a no-go, because in order to make any money I would have to do things that were not Christian. I even wanted to be a racecar driver…but racing on a Sunday in the Daytona 500 would take me away from God and toward my selfishness. Sacrificing God was never an option. Pretending I’d get where I wanted to go and later make it up to Him would have been the first step away from Him. Regardless of any desires of what I wanted to be here, in this temporary life, I realized that anything here is just that: temporary. I want eternal.

Getting back to those pearls, I see now what I didn’t see then; not every pearl is perfect. I’ve made countless mistakes in my time here. A lot of those mistakes I learned from immediately. A number of them took a couple of times to sink in…and a few I am still repeating because I do not recognize them until it’s been done. I am getting better at recognizing them, though. It is in this that I see what holds my pearls in place. That string on which my pearls hang has to be strong. It has to be made of stuff that gets the job done of holding me together. No material the world offers will do; this world does a better job of tearing apart than keeping together. My string is the Holy Spirit, Rom. 8:1-11. He dwells in me, influencing every thought and action. Yes… sometimes I ignore Him. I sin. My conscience beats me up until I make it right. My memories of those mistakes are the dents in my pearls, reminders of what it costed.

There have been experiences in my life that I thought, while in the middle of experiencing them, were tragedies. Even though they were hard moments, they were moments that did the most building of the person I was to become. Joseph understood this. His life was one crisis after another. His mother was claimed by death when Joseph was young, his brothers hated him and subsequently sold him into slavery, his master’s wife abused him, his freed fellow prisoner forgot him. Many would see Joseph’s life as a disaster. Joseph did not. He called his life good; not because of the experiences themselves, but because of the result God intended his life to accomplish, Gen. 50:19-21. And if you look back through Joseph’s life in scripture, you will see God right beside him every step of the way, Heb. 13:5. The pearls that have dents in them are still beautiful.

Pearls are grown from a piece of grit getting into the mollusk. To protect its soft tissue, the mollusk begins covering the irritant with nacre. Layer by layer, a pearl is grown. The mollusk must have the proper mechanisms in place to defend against damage from the invader. If it doesn’t, the grit will eventually damage or allow infection into the mollusk. Christians must also have the proper mechanisms in place to protect themselves from the grits of life. It’s easy to get bogged down by temptations and trials. It starts with that grit. Choices made and habits built up as a reaction to that grit become the directions we take, the methods we use to solve problems. A lot of where we end up in this life depends on those habits, those choices. Some choose God.

Most choose Satan. The Devil has an arsenal of weapons, 2 Cor. 2:11, and they are all aimed at mankind…but the most powerful tool at his disposal to keep us wandering in the wrong direction is deception, Jn. 8:44, 1 Cor. 11:3,14, Rev. 12:9. He shows us what we think we want. Our selfishness is preyed upon by the one who is an expert in tempting us with what we desire when we are at our weakest. Most of the pitfalls we suffer are of our own choosing and begin and end with selfishness. We humans have a talent for destroying ourselves. The only thing that keeps us from doing so is wisdom. Some may say that the Christian life is not brilliant. It’s void of fame and glory, prominence and prestige, monetary ease, things the world tells us we should want.

Their eyes can’t see the abundance that is found in following God - the overflowing peace, joy, hope, fulfillment, love, gratitude. This list is one that everyone that has a heartbeat seeks in this carnal existence - but so few find - primarily because of where they are looking. I found these things in the one place the world rarely looks: scripture. God’s Word is the factory that has built my life, 2 Tim. 3:16-17. That’s not to say I didn’t make my fair share of mistakes along the way. I didn’t even know they were mistakes while I was making them. I had to learn. I had to learn to identify when I messed up, otherwise it would be repeated over and over until I either finally learned or just got stuck in this infinite loop of repeated mistakes. They can be personal mistakes or even mistakes passed down from father to son or mother to daughter; unless the circle is broken, they will continue. God’s message to Ezekiel dealt with the tribe of Judah blaming their parents for their exile into Babylon, Ezek. 18. Their exile was their own fault because they repeated the mistakes of their parents! Many of the Jews in the first century did as well, Acts 7:51. Bad habits can be broken and new, good habits learned - by both young and old. I wish I could tell you there was a list, a chart that I have compiled to make it easier for you to get rid of that grit. I do not. Even the shiny pearls I learned took work. All of those wonderful things I had in my sights were on the other side of a series of actions called responsibility. I was severely bummed. I couldn’t ask Dad for a quarter I could pop into a little machine and get my hopes and dreams to come rolling down a chute wrapped in a handy dandy plastic egg. Not only were my desires much harder to get to, but I even had to go out and get my own quarter. I knew I needed time to learn the lessons experience had to teach me, but experience is so SLOW. I had forgotten that growth happens in layers. It takes patience to grow those layers. As it turns out, it takes layers to grow patience. This is where it got interesting…and I didn’t see how interesting until the pearl was fully formed. I still don’t have a chart, but I do have an instruction book. There is no “easy access” to the information. You have to do the work. Read. Study. Fellowship with those who read and study. Dust off your Bible and find the enormous treasure within its pages.

Each soldier of Christ is at a different stage of their life as a Christian. Pearls grow. So can Christians. It just doesn’t happen all at once. Our defenses will be tested, whether on a personal level or even as a congregation of the Lord’s church. James wrote, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” (James 1:2-3) The Hebrew writer addresses how these layers are grown. Spiritual pearls are worn by those “who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.“ By reason of use, layers of wisdom and courage are grown, Heb. 5:12-14. Imagine having this kind of armor against Satan; armor built by God, layers crafted by the only hands that are capable of protecting us from the Devil’s darts, Eph. 6:10-13.

The trick to defeating Satan is in the layers. An article in Science Alert written by David Nield states that: “The secret to nacre's toughness is in the way the material's tiled surface locks together when stress is put on it, enabling it to spread out the strain. When the surface is no longer under pressure, it relaxes into individual tiles again.” An article written by John Donald Currey and published in the Royal Society Publishing of Biological Sciences has this to say about nacre: “An attempt is made to explain qualitatively the mechanical behaviour of nacre in terms of its submicroscopic structure. It is concluded that the precise geometric arrangement of the plates is most important, and that this constraint may make nacre less suitable for shells that must be built quickly.” Pearls that are built slowly and with the right arrangement are stronger than pearls built quickly. But why does the strength of the pearl matter? We’re using pearls as a metaphor for knowledge gained from life experiences, so let me rephrase that question. Why does the strength of knowledge, how it is built and arranged, matter? The answer to this question is found in 2 Cor. 10:4-5. There is a war being waged for our minds. The stronger our defenses, the less likely we are to lose the battle against the Deceiver. Remember that grit of sand? Protecting ourselves from the damage that tiny piece of grit can do depends on how well our pearl is built.

We can’t “go out of the world” (1 Cor. 5:10) to avoid sin no more than that mollusk can avoid getting sand into its shell, but we can keep sin from affecting our Christian health by building strong defenses. It takes patience. David was a young boy when he faced Goliath. When offered a physical suit of armor, he understood that armor had to be both learned and earned. David had never fought in a suit of armor and it encumbered him when he walked, 1 Sam. 17:38-39. He hadn’t “tested” it. He didn’t know how to fight using a soldier’s equipment - but that’s not to say he didn’t know how to fight. God was David’s armor, 1 Sam. 17:37. David had experienced battles before and had gained wisdom and courage through those experiences. This equipped him to take on Goliath.

Pearls are resilient things. Christians can be too, with the right motivation and tools. Even when we don’t all start at the same place, we can all end up at the same place. How? By following the same map. We know the process by which strong pearls are made. There is also a process by which strong Christians are made. Not every Christian is at the same point on the journey. Some are just starting while others have been on this road so long they can walk it blindfolded. As layers take time to build up, once they are built up…they need maintenance. Keeping pearls in a safe place and the occasional cleaning are required. Each Sunday, the Lord’s church assembles to worship God. We as Christians are commanded to edify one another. The word edify means “build up”. Help each other grow. Even a seasoned Christian should still be growing. The layers of our pearls should include: fellowship, Heb. 10:24-25, grace and knowledge, 1 Pet. 2:2, 2 Pet. 3:17-18, and good works, Titus 3:14. Our soil should be rich with these fertilizers. Then and only then can we produce fruit, 2 Pet. 1:5-8.

I want my daughter to have her own set of pearls; not just the physical kind, but the spiritual kind as well. But she has to grow them. I can’t do that for her. My job is to teach her how. This is why I try every day to be pleasing to God. My husband and I cannot give our child a more valuable gift than showing her God. The home should be the easiest place for a kid to learn about Him. I don’t always succeed and by the end of the day I am asking God for forgiveness, but if she sees me growing, trying, learning, she will be encouraged to do the same, 2 Tim. 1:3-5; 3:10-15. This also applies in the church. When the church is united, when everyone is working toward one another’s wellbeing, the church GROWS, Acts 4:32-35. If you are a part of the church, cherish it. You are a citizen of the greatest kingdom that has ever existed, Eph. 2:19. If you would like to become a part of the church, the directions in how to do this are found in God’s Holy Word. We here at the church of Christ welcome you to join us every Sunday and Wednesday evening to study with us.