Alpha and Omega

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