God is Writing into your
life
Rev. 22:13 - I am the alpha and the
omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
For many years
now I have worked with non-English speaking families, teaching both Spanish and English as a Second Language. A year or so ago I
attended a seminar for teachers to learn how to work with children in the
classrooms who had limited English speaking skills. One of the exercises the
instructor had us to do was to pick a partner and tell that person about a
vacation we had taken. There was one catch - There was a list of letters we could
not use.
I remember one
was the vowel A and another was the letter E. That ruled out the word vacation
and the word went. As you can imagine, the conversation was quite imaginative.
People made
sentences like this: I go to store. I go to beach. I heard one lady yell – “you
can’t say beach.”
“Oops that’s right I can’t, ” was the reply.
So what was the
point? The point was to show teachers how difficult it can be to try and
express oneself with limited English vocabulary in an effort to make them more
empathetic for students who are struggling with the language.
Personally, I
have always been fascinated by languages. People who know that I study
languages often ask me, “which language is the hardest to learn?” Though there
are several answers to this, one measure is simple: The more different a
language is from the one you already speak, the harder it will be to master.
One thing that makes a language somewhat difficult is when it has a different
alphabet from English such as Chinese, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, etc.
I recently found
an introductory Hebrew book that I used in a class I took several years ago. As
I was flipping through it, I remembered the struggle to properly pronounce
Hebrew words that were written with an alphabet I was having to learn to read.
(Just in case you are wondering, I still have not perfectly mastered the Hebrew
alphabet.)
As I flipped
through the book, I was reminded that the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet
or Aleph and Bet. We get the word alphabet from Hebrew, through Greek and into
English from the first two letters. In the Greek language the first and last
letters of the alphabet are Alpha and Omega. As I contemplated this thought this
morning, I suddenly realized what Jesus was telling us. By saying that he is
the Alpha and Omega he was letting us know that he has all the necessary
letters and vocabulary to express himself in our lives.
II Corinthians
3:1-3 says that we as Christians are letters written from God to world. God is
writing our life story through the things that happen in our lives. Sometimes
we may feel handicapped by our inability to understand what God is saying or
doing our lives. After all, we are not as fluent in understanding God’s speech
as he is in understanding us. However, if we will trust His will, we will see
that the things being written into our life stories are for our good.
We must trust
that all things do work together for the good of those who love God and are
called according to his purpose.
Not only is God
the Alpha, the beginning, but he is Omega, the ending. Just as in a novel, one
cannot tell how a book will end until the last page is read. So in living for
God, we cannot see how a story will turn out until it is finished. One thing is
sure: If we try to take the pen and write the story ourselves (by making
decisions without prayer), things will not turn out well. However, if we trust
God, He has a way of making things turn out for our benefit.
In closing, let
us remember the words of the Apostle Paul: He who has begun a good work in you
will continue that good work until the day when Jesus Christ returns (Philipians 1:6). I am so
glad that God has not written the last chapter yet.
God Bless,
Pastor Sullivan
Jones
Truth Tabernacle
of Bay St. Louis
