Diamonds are formed deep within the earth’s mantle about 100 miles, or below, and the amount of pressure and heat exerted is far more than any scientist could handle in search for this delicate piece. The only way for it to be found is to be executed in a volcanic explosion, chiseled out of its debris and surrounding garb. Once it has been expelled from its untraced residence, it must lay hidden in lava to then cool and wait for someone to come along and spend time and energy chiseling away to find the beautiful diamond.

This short and very elementary level description lead me to Ecclesiastes 3:11: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

As sinners, we were alone and undiscovered, filthy and destined to break, and promised an eternity with the master of deception and temptation. We were far away from Christ and felt unreachable through our human perception of what love truly meant and what mercy could really accomplish. But you see, he loved us before we knew it was love, he saw everything and still even then chose the cross and it was us that He was thinking of when He rose from the grave. He must’ve seen beauty in ashes. He must’ve seen His beloved.

As Christians, we are under the “heat” and pressure to be set apart from this world and become molded into the follower we are called to be according to our personal will from God. It takes many components, transitions and occurrences in order to bring such beauty from dust, and it takes a patient individual and a humble spirit in order to endure this process that is so far from easy. Sometimes, our hope becomes drained, our faith tired and just when we feel our trust in Him is giving way, He gives us a new song.

We eagerly await to be sent out into the world, use our individual beauty to draw others into the arms of Christ and discover our will and destiny. God uses this waiting process as a trainer to craft you, and allow you to begin unbecoming everything you were not to harm you, but so that you might become His beauty from ashes. To us, waiting is wasting, but to God waiting is working. His mercy swept over, chose you and is allowing the refinement to take place, hold the vision and trust the process.

Finally we receive our calling and we are sent to be discovered by the lost, and all the while God is peeling back more and more of you, to show more and more of Him. He clears our debris and the excess that takes away from the elegant shine, and in time He reveals a diamond, from the ashes it rose and because of grace it illuminates in loveliness. He may remove relationships, job positions, friendships and circumstances from your life, not to be silenced but shut in. Hidden so far in Him that others will have to seek Him first to even know a part of you.

This “plundering” through your deepest self isn’t to expose you and your wrong, but to allow you to become accountable and in partnership with Him responsible. He makes this process tedious, breaking us before Him so we are forced to be still and know from where our help comes from. Blessed are those who trust in Him. If we never endured a waiting period or a dry season, we would never experience the greatness of our God because His full potential and glory would never be needed.

When we lean upon our own intuition, we will almost always fail, but with the guidance from the keeper of all eternity we are destined for promise. We lay idle still in our rubble waiting for someone to think enough of us to actually discover us, clean us up and reveal our pure radiance upon exposure to light. Sadly, we look too often to this world for this fulfilling moment when God is simply saying,

"Look to me I have already written your story just read from me and there you will find all your answers to an assuring future walking upon the path I have laid for you. But forget all that; it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?” Isaiah 43:18-19.

He hung the stars and placed planets into orbit, He sent His one and only son to die for a world that doesn’t even acknowledge Him and He loved us when we did not show love in response. We have pushed Him to the side and His grip is still strong, we bought the world and sold our heart yet He traded heaven to have us again and we hid in fear of judgement yet he removed shackles and gave us victory and tore the veil so we may be close to Him. He took this broken vessel and transformed it into a complete work of art with all credit due to our artist of all humanity. He made beautiful things out of dust and darkness, and placed us on a solid rock. Not because He owes us anything, but because He sought out His beloved like a groom for His bride, and allowed no fear in love devoted like a ring of solid gold.

We are His portion and He is our prize drawn to redemption by grace, and He looked across a sea of people and chose you. Chose you to rise and become fearfully and wonderfully made, rid of all shame, guilt and discourse and known by your true name. His beloved.