’Tis The Season to Sparkle!
Have you ever discovered a verse that you had no idea existed but as soon as you find it, it becomes your new favorite? It happened. I found it. Matthew 6:21, (my old favorite verse) move over because SPARKLES ARE IN THE BIBLE!!! If you know me (or even if you don’t) you probably can tell that I love sparkles. No lie, they are my favorite color. So you can imagine my overwhelming joy when I discovered that not only are sparkles pretty, they’re Biblical…sorta.
I realized that we need to be sparkles for Jesus!
Now here’s a little Story Time with Natalie and I’ll explain where this whole idea of sparkling for Jesus came from. First of all, I just love sparkles. I was in color guard in high school and it was sparkly everything. Sparkly outfits, flags, makeup, hair, you name it, we COVERED IT IN SPARKLES. Since then, sparkles have become one of my favorite “colors.” (Have you noticed that sparkles are kind of an unofficial Christmas color?! It’s wonderful!!) The other week, I was asked this question~ “If you had to describe your personality as a color, what would it be and why?” Well of course I said sparkles! And then I explained it like this. Sparkles make me happy and I’m a happy person. But I also mentioned how glitter gets everywhere and even after you’ve cleaned it up, you still find more. In some ways, I feel like I can be that way too. I can be persistent and stick to something almost to the point of being annoying. Now jump ahead a week or so and I saw this verse in a daily devotional email. Honestly, I almost didn’t even read it but then the word SPARKLE jumped out at me so I read it and just about exploded! Seriously! It totally made my day to discover that sparkles are in the Bible! “They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown.” Those words just stuck in my head until I started to realize that my answer to the personality question kinda goes along with this verse.
Zechariah 9:16 says “The Lord their God will save them on that day as the flock of his people. They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown.” Now the context of this verse is a prophecy about the coming of the Lord and there is a ton of good stuff in this whole passage but I’m only focusing on this small part. A king’s crown is his glory, the bigger and fancier it is, the more people will notice and praise the king. This verse is talking about how God’s people will do that for Him; they will bring Him glory.
That being said, I know I’m taking this sparkle a bit out of context here when I say we should sparkle, but what I love about it is the imagery in the last sentence. You can all picture how a crown of jewels sparkles right? The way the gemstones catch the light and reflect it back; the way different gems shine different colors and different amounts; the way they twinkle when they move. There’s really no other way to describe it other than beautiful and sparkly.
In essence though, sparkles aren’t anything fancy or complicated, they’re really just reflecting light. But what light? Glitter and sequins reflect the sunlight or the light from a light bulb, but we don’t! The verse says “they will sparkle,” but they aren’t reflecting sunlight, they’re reflecting Jesus! Part of being a Christian is showing Jesus to the world, taking His love and mercy and reflecting it back to them. In John 8:12, Jesus says “I am the light of the world.” Jesus is the light that causes us to sparkle! He is the light that we should reflect.
WE NEED TO SPARKLE FOR JESUS!
Something I’ve been realizing recently though is that this is going to look different for different people in different seasons. If you take a sequin, glitter, and a rhinestone and put them under a light, they will all sparkle, but they’ll do it differently. One may shine brighter than the others or be a different color, but as long as the light is turned on, they will sparkle in some way. People are exactly the same!
So don’t get discouraged if you aren’t doing the same thing as someone else. Don’t try to copy how someone else shows Jesus, because you are your own unique kind of sparkle! As long as there’s still Jesus shining into your life, you will still reflect it back! In the same way that some people find more beauty in the sparkle of a diamond rather than in glitter, people will see Jesus in you differently than in someone else.
My cousin absolutely HATES glitter. She’s the kind of person who would punch you in the face if you dumped glitter on her because she hates it that much. But she doesn’t mind sequins or rhinestones. If glitter was the only thing that sparkled, she would hate all sparkles, so it’s a good thing that they aren’t all the same. That’s how we are. We can’t all reflect Jesus in exactly the same way because not everyone will appreciate that way. Some people reflect His love through service while others through listening or speaking. You can sparkle in so many different ways and it’s important that we do!
If you’ve ever used glitter before, then I’m sure you know that it has another “property” other than pretty reflections. It sticks to things. IT NEVER GOES AWAY. (this is why my cousin hates it so much, maybe you can identify with her?) No matter how many times you try and clean up, you’ll always find that one little sparkle left behind. As annoying as that can be, we should be just doing that. Now I’m not saying we should be annoying. NO! Don’t go out and purposely annoy people for Jesus. That’s a terrible idea! But we should be leaving our mark. Every time we walk away from a situation or an interaction with someone, there should be a little bit of Jesus left behind.
Can you imagine what would happen if we all did that? If we all thought of ourselves as sparkles for Jesus? If we all intentionally reflected Him back onto those around us every time we went out? If we all purposely left behind a little bit of Him everywhere we went? Just think about that for a minute. How different would your life be? How much better? How many more people would come to know Jesus?
I just bought a Christmas shirt that says “ ‘Tis the Season to Sparkle!” (surprise surprise, right?) Sparkles are everywhere this time of year as decorations to celebrate the birth of our Savior, so I challenge you: every time you see sparkles in a decoration somewhere (or anywhere else for that matter) ask yourself ‘Am I sparkling for Jesus?’
