Giant Oysters

09.16.11

Revelation 21.21 21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass. NIV

Somewhere there are giant mollusks which produce giant pearls. I believe those exist somewhere right now at this moment. I believe if we were able to go there, wherever they are, we’d see those giant oysters. The gates of the New Jerusalem are pearls; each made of a single pearl – hence the giant oysters.

God’s universe is vast and wide and incomprehensible. But one thing is for sure: everything in God’s universe is there for God’s pleasure. A city is there where God’s people will/do dwell and between giant pearls and streets of the purest gold it is an awesome (in the God sense of the word) place.

We live in a world mixed (I believe) with far-fetched fantasy and rigor-mortem reality. I have a feeling that people in this world, whether they recognize it or not, suffer from the effects of sin and fallenness and because they do, I firmly believe that most people in their suffering long for something more (or other) than what they have. I also believe that most people in the world when confronted with the facts of giant pearls and streets of gold would say something like, “Huh-yeah, right.”

Believe it or not, the truth is, giant oysters and streets paved with pure gold do exist… whether I want to believe it or not. And since they exist, it follows that so does the Maker of those things. And since He exists, then I am accountable to Him for He also made me. Giant pearls and gold as paving material is no big deal to God. His biggest deal (if He has deals) is getting you and me to believe in Him because the Psalm says: Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in obedience to him. (Psalm 128.1 NIV) I would add, because their eyes will see prodigious pearls and pure pavement.

Right now it’s by faith and not by sight – tha’s all we got. I have to accept by faith that there are giant oysters out there which produce pearls big enough to be used as gates for a city. I also have to believe that God is working in me to transform me into the man, the disciple, the Christ-follower He’s created me to be; despite my herky-jerky belief – you know, the when-things-are-going-good-then-God-is- really-real belief. And the when things are going bad then He must be off distracted in some other part of the universe and has forgotten about me somehow – or He’s not who He says He is. Such is the sad, sick, fickle heart: so easily pleased with trinkets and so easily discouraged when the trinkets are removed.

Giant oysters are along the lines of: Okay, it could happen. Real belief and deeply seasoned faith however are along the lines of steadfast and immovable belief when it’s all going (or gone) to crap and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight – just a knowing that God has promised somewhere in the midst of it, and in control of it all. Whew! I can’t wait to see those oysters.