Sparkle

So not so secret confession: I have a thing for sparkles. I realize this probably sounds extremely cheesy and brings to mind elementary school  craft projects gone awry. Fortunately, my love for sparkles doesn't manifest itself in a love for 1st-grade glitter pens, rhinestones, and bedazzled clothing. But I do have to say, there is something about a tasteful sparkle, be it on a pretty formal dress or off the water by the beach on a beautiful summer day, that just brings a smile to my face. 


So shocker number 2: the bible doesn't really have a lot to say about sparkles. It does however, have somethings to say about light and shine (which is close enough for me):

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. 
~Philippians 2:14-16

This has been one of my favorite verses for a while, just because I love the image of shining like stars. For me, it's so easy to picture what living that out looks like: we overflow with encouragement, we glow with joy, we sparkle.  We work to reflect the Lord's glory. The image is simply breath-taking. 


So how do we go about becoming "sparkly"? I really do think the essential concept is to reflect the Lord's glory in our lives, but the verse also gives us some more practical (and challenging!) words of wisdom. 


1. Do everything without grumbling and complaining. Tall order! When we grumble and complain, we take the focus off of God's goodness and light that we are trying to reflect and instead put the focus on our own struggles. Definitely a challenge.


2. So that you may become blameless and pure. So, giving up our self-focus by surrendering our grumbling and complaining makes us cleaner and purer before the Lord. With less of ourselves in the way, we become a better and truer reflection of the Lord's light. 


I really think we all have our things that we light up for: be it success in our job, our relationships with other people, our appearance and how others perceive us, or myriad other things. We glow in that we are extremely happy and excited, and then we fizzle out. My challenge for us is to work on those practical bits of wisdom so that we can truly sparkle: reflecting the perfect joy that comes with glorifying the Lord. 

In the same way, let your light shine before men, 
that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. 
~Matthew 5:16