Digging Deeper

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. 1 John 3:10

One morning in February 2006, something changed.

I came to church on Sunday, like I’d been doing every Sunday for the past six-ish months.  I’d been feeling something tugging on my heart for a year before that, but I wouldn’t acknowledge it.  I was sure that I was mistaken.  I was sure that the people around me had a relationship with God, but I really wasn’t good enough to ever have something like that.

God made it clear to me, on that cold morning that He wanted to call me His child.

Finally, I stopped ignoring Him.  Finally, I trusted that I wasn’t being tricked.  Finally, I opened my heart and let Him in.

“How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.”

I was a different person.  I felt like Dorothy when she went from black-and-white Kansas to the colorful world of Oz!

Since then, I’ve often wondered if the changes are as apparent to others as they are to me.

Remember those spot-the-difference puzzles from kids’ magazines?  There are two images, side by side, and you have to… um, spot the difference.

If I could take a picture of me before I knew Christ, and a picture of me since, and I laid them side by side, could anyone spot the difference?

I wonder if at first glance, people could say, “Well, here’s the difference, she’s alone in this picture, in the other one, she has Jesus with her.”

Or are the changes less visible?  Would someone say, “Well, it looks like she doesn’t curse in this picture… give me a minute, I’ll find something else… there isn’t a time limit on this, is there?”

Thinking of all the ways my life has changed, I want this for everyone.  I want every person I see to have this grace, this salvation, this love.  My part in that is to make sure that even those who don’t know God can see Him in the picture of me.

Lord, I can never give enough thanks for the love You have given me.  Help me to make the changes in me as visible as clothing.

Read: Isaiah 61:10

Jeanne Roberts