podcast link below:
https://anchor.fm/beth-madison/episodes/Geode-lives-e1dd9u9
Proverbs 2:1-5 My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God
Geodes are some of my favorite rocks. Unimpressive dull gray-brown heavy bumpy balls of rock on the outside. They’re often covered in mud or at least somewhat buried in detritus and soil. If you didn’t know what you were looking for or at, you’d keep walking and leave that rock where it was. Yet to a trained rock hound, a geode is a treasure.
Because when split open, geodes contain a marvelous hidden beauty of multi-colored or clear quartz minerals encapsulated in that dull bumpy sedimentary rock. Even if the geode isn’t professionally cut, polished, and shined for sale in a museum or jewelry store, it is gorgeous. A geode captures, intensifies, and focuses light in and through the crystals juxtaposed against the rock around them. To a rock hound, an open geode is like a fancy diamond necklace set against a backdrop of black velvet.
Geodes form when holes or bubbles occur during the sedimentary rock processes of dissolving, transporting, and reconsolidating other rocks. These holes serve as traps for the quartz crystals to lodge and be preserved from further transformation during subsequent sedimentary rock formation processes. The quartz crystals remain whole, unchanged, and beautiful because they are kept safe inside that rock capsule.
It takes a lot of force to split open a geode. A sedimentary rock capsule is usually extra-hard and thick around its’ hidden treasure of the quartz crystals contained within. For if the rock wasn’t so resistant to damage, the crystals wouldn’t be present to be delighted in now after years of exposure and weathering.
And I do delight in the geodes scattered across my office – some I found while walking the farm, others in forgotten cabinets and corners, and still others inherited from a retired rock hound. All of these geodes have stories and significance to me.
Because when I see geodes, I am reminded of how good my God truly is. To me, these geodes represent how He forms a solid sedimentary-hard faith in the lives of those who seek His face in any and all circumstances. Yet this faith isn’t there to preserve their lives but to protect the beauty of His love in them. A true love treasure protected deep inside the Christian by the Holy Spirit who has sealed them safe for all eternity.
But that’s not all of the beauty to be found here…
When the force of overwhelming circumstances split open the lives of those who seek Him, their geode-lives display a luminous light-giving quartz-hope in their God and His love for them. For our Good God surrounds geode-lives like the mountains surround Jerusalem – with an impenetrable strength of love that never fades, leaves, or erodes, no matter the circumstance or length of time.
For geode-life people know that is their God – the One Who stays and doesn’t turn away (see Hebrews 13:5). The One Who doesn’t change (see Hebrews 13:8). The One Who creates, sustains, and commands all things (see Genesis 1 and 2). The One Who is love and loving (see 1 John 4). The One Who is relentless in pursuing (see Luke 15:4).
For this same God is always shaping, sorting, and securing hope in hearts reflecting the Light of truth central to the core of their geode-lives in His glorious love. Those who seek Him know that this same God who spoke the rocks into being is the same God Who formed them from the dust of these same rocks (see Genesis 2:15). This same God is the One Who is always with them in the fires, floods, and fears.
Geode-people know God is always giving a rock-solid faith for that time, that trial, and that temptation without ever letting go of them. And as God holds them, He splits open and reveals more of Jesus alive in them and at work in and through them. For in Jesus, we find hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (see Colossians 2:2b-3a). And the beauty of these hidden treasures of quartz-like love, wisdom, and knowledge far surpasses what we can know, ask, or imagine (see Ephesians 3:20-21). Therefore, circumstances of trial, time, or temptation can be as a black velvet background for the lovely crystals of Jesus wisdom, knowledge and love to shine in unmistakable beauty from the middle of geode-people holding hard to our God.
And there in those beautiful and hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge, we can find the strength to endure whatever we can’t see now. And there in our Jesus, we can know that nothing will overcome us if we remain in Him, our strong Rock like none other.
Matthew 7:24 Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
1 Samuel 2:2b there is no rock like our God
Reflection prayer:
Dear Father God,
Thank You that You reveal hidden beauty to us when we trust You, especially in hard circumstances. Thank You that Your love is strong just like You are. Thank You that You give hope in all times to stand up against fear, temptation, and doubt. Please help me to look for wisdom with all of my heart. Please help me to hold fast to You.
In the strong Name of Jesus,
Amen.
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written by and copyrighted to Beth Madison, Ph.D., 2022.
Soul Scientist 