Philippians 2:13-For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. "She's a diamond in the rough", is a familiar way of saying somebody has potential to become far more than she is right now.  But I believe that we are much more like opals than diamonds.  Did you know that an opal is made of desert dust, sand and silica and owes its beauty not to its perfection but to a defect? The opal is a stone with a broken heart.  It is full of minute fissures that allow air inside, and then the air refracts the light.  As a result, the opal has such lovely hues that the stone is called "the lamp of fire" because the breath of the Lord is in it. As opal will lose its luster if it is kept in a cold, dark place, but the … [Read more...]