Mother Of Pearl

Mother of Pearl; turning the grit of life of life into something beautiful; do you have it in you?

2Co 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding [and] eternal weight of glory;

Pearls as a gift, have been considered from time immemorial, one of the most beautiful gifts a person can give. They convey the deepest of affection, and esteemed worth of an individual in the eyes of another. Any woman thus adorned seems to take on a new elegance and sense of refinement. A fitting tribute to the price the lowly sea mollusk must pay to bring forth such a beauty from the pain borne of its bosom. Not a gem dug out of the earth and requiring the polishing, cutting and shaping of a skilled artisan, but a work of beauty already exquisite in its perfection, coming forth from the heart of a creature whose soul has known pain in the deepest recesses of its being. It requires not the embellishment of human hand, for it is the secret work of grace wrought in hidden and dark places, away from human eyes forged in a furnace of friction, and covered with layer after layer of the mollusks own inner beauty, which we call, “The Mother of Pearl.” The mollusks inner shell is coated with this beautifully iridescent substance and it is this substance that gives birth to pearls and that is why we call it the mother of pearl. This message is a short work to remind you, that as a Christian, God has also placed in you the iridescent characteristics that can rightfully be called Mother of Pearl, and which also can create beauty out of havoc in your life.

A pearl is the product of an irritation which has been transformed by a creature whose intelligence is too minuscule to orchestrate such, but who by the grace of God, has been hardwired to overcome that irritation by covering it with its own self. Thus the irritation is transformed into a gem like object of rare and distinguished beauty. So it is that God’s children have the same ability hardwired into them, for His promise is that He works all things out together for good. (Romans 8:28)

Our title for this message is, “Mother of Pearl, turning the grit of life into something beautiful; do you have it in you?” I believe the answer to that question is a resounding yes, and to that end I present the following:

Have you ever noticed that two people with identical circumstances, often have vastly different responses. What makes the difference? For example let’s suppose Doubting Tom, and Praising Paul both had an accident and broke their arm, how would they respond? Tom would wonder why God loved him so little to allow such a thing to happen, Paul would praise God that there was a reason for God’s timing in the event and look for what God wanted to do or to teach him. Why is Tom a doubter and Paul a Praiser? We will try to address that issue in this short lesson. Before we move on I would like to make a brief but important point; “according to your faith be it done unto you.” (Mt 9:29) It has been my observation that people who want to be negative will always find fuel to feed their fire, while people who want to be positive will always find things for which to give thanks. Both groups of people will experience trouble in their life, one will go from problem, to problem, to problem, the other will go from deliverance, deliverance, to deliverance. Both will have difficulties in life that must, for a season, be endured. One groups journey will be sweeter, more joy filled, and song filled, the other will view life through the filter of their problems, and their life will be marked, by sorrow, sadness, and complaining. The difference is not in their external circumstances, but internally with how they deal with them. According to their faith will it be done unto them. Said another way, the spin you put on circumstances will in large part determine the outcome you receive.

As an example of how a negative view and predisposition can grossly and inaccurately color your life consider this Bible quote and the person who made it: “So Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.’” (gen 47:9) First, please notice he is already thinking of himself as a dead man. He says that he hasn’t lived as long as his predecessors, which on its face is true, but then again he isn’t dead yet! (Jacob lived another 17 years after he had made this statement! Gen 47:28) Jacob is speaking as a person whose life has been terrible and from his point of view is already over, how sad to be a child of God and think that way, because it not only brought Jacob sorrow but it was also totally untrue! Jacob views his life as one trial after another, and he makes that statement at a time when he should have been on cloud nine. His son Joseph, as far as he knew, had been dead for seventeen years, and now by a great miracle he finds out he is yet alive. Additionally, Jacob’s family had been facing the threat of starvation but now through the providential sending of Joseph to Egypt, not only would his family be spared, but they would be treated like royalty. His son was the prime minister of all Egypt! The first words out of his mouth should have been, “Praise God!!!” Instead he laments all the troubles he has had in life. Jacob was short on Mother of Pearl, he looked at life’s troubles, and was blind to God’s miraculous provisions. God was good to Jacob all his life, and in the midst of his greatest miracle Jacob’s outlook so clouded his life that he couldn’t even see the good God was doing. His blessings had been stolen, not in fact, but he had been robbed of his ability to appreciate them, and his ability to laugh. He didn’t need God to be any different to Him, what greater miracle could God have done for him - a dead son brought back to life!, what he needed was to have the scales lifted off of his eyes. Jacob spent his life coating his problems not with the Mother of Pearl, but with the Mother of Gloom. He could of had a beautiful pearl, (the irony of all this is he did have a wonderful pearl of a testimony), instead he offered Pharaoh a Pearl of gloom, doom, and despair. Jacob gave a bad testimony of God’s goodness. God told Jacob his name was changed to Israel (Prince with God), but the name never really stuck, because Jacob (cheater, low life) continued to look at himself as Jacob and not Israel. If you want to be happy and successful as a Christian you have to learn to see yourself as God sees you. If He says you are forgiven, and you don’t accept that and struggle with guilt what more can He do? Jesus already died, the price has already been paid, He doesn’t have to do anything more, nor will He. What has to happen is that you have to repent for not believing what He has said about you and for taking the devils spin on things. In short you have to repent for believing the devil more than God!