Heart Tracks - Golden Thread

"There was a believer in Joppa named Tabitha. She was always doing kind things for others and helping the poor. About this time she became ill and died.....Her friends....heard Peter was nearby at Lydda, so they sent two men to beg him, 'Please come as soon as possible!' So Peter returned with them and as soon as he arrived they took him to the upstairs room. The room was filled with widows who were weeping and showed him the coats and other garments Tabitha had made for them."

A friend shared yesterday of a Memorial Service that he'll be speaking at for a close friend who had lived a wonderful life in Christ. Wonderful though much of it was filled with pain, heartache, and suffering. After a long battle, she had succumbed to cancer. He talked of sharing the above Scripture and how the deceased Tabitha's room was filled with things she had woven and made. It made him think of the weaving of a tapestry, and how that tapestry, as many before have commented, can represent the living out of a life. As I listened, I thought of just how that might apply to my life, your life, all of our lives.

In times past, and I imagine even now, the finest clothes and tapestries often had thread made in part of pure gold woven into them. It was meant to add to the richness of the finished work. My thought is how the Father, through Christ, in the weaving of the tapestry of our own lives, seeks to weave into them, the golden thread of His life and activity. The question for me, for you and all of us is this; how much gold has been woven into our lives by His hand? In the clothing and tapestries I speak of, the presence of the golden thread was undeniable. They literally shown with golden brilliance. Do our lives do the same? Have the golden threads that He has sought to weave into our lives through the events of our lives been received? It is said that a tapestry when viewed from behind is a monstrosity to look upon. It makes no sense at all. But when looked upon from the front, is a work of beauty. How many of us see our lives and the lives of others that way? Only from behind. Never seeing the beauty that He seeks to work into, is working into them with His golden thread. Golden thread soaked in His blood...and ours as well.

The cost of the golden thread in the tapestries and clothing I speak of was great. So is its presence in the lives I speak of. It was so in the sister who has gone before us to His rest and glory. If we are to have such thread in our own lives, it will be for us as well. The thread is not found in lives of ease. Lives that seek an avoidance of all pain and trouble. Lives whose constant cry to Him is for deliverance from all pain and heartache. No, only those lives that surrender, joyfully to His leading, even when that leading will take us through a dark night of the soul. A dark night that can seem an eternity in length. It is in those places, places of loss, sacrifice, sorrow, and suffering, that the golden thread is woven. Woven by and with hands of love. His love. Unending love. Lives that shine with the brilliance of His golden thread. Golden thread that will show throughout eternity.

What is being woven into our lives today? What shows before a watching world? What will show when our time here is over? What will be our tapestry, our clothing? Brilliant with His thread of gold, or....not? To have such thread will cost us everything, but we will gain all things in Him. He weaves our lives even now. What thread would you have?

Blessings,
Pastor O