Air

I was busy visiting with a group of friends at camp meeting one day, when my little five year old granddaughter came up to me, with an earnest and anxious look on her face. She held out both of her hands to me, and said, “Grandma, please take care of this for me.” I held out my hands, not sure what to expect. She gently opened her hands into mine, giving me a very precious handful of...air. “Please be careful with it, and don’t drop it grandma,” she said. Her trusting face told me all that I needed to know. That handful of air became my most precious possession then and there. I held it carefully, making sure not to drop it as she had directed. She looked on, beaming, to see how special it was to me. After a while, she came back and told me that it was time to take her “air” to the hammock and give it a nap. I gently placed it back into her hands, and watched her make her way carefully over to the hammock, as happy as any little girl could be with a priceless doll.

This morning I was reminded of that little incident when I read this quote from The Desire of Ages. “Through the value of the sacrifice made for them, they are of value in the Lord’s sight. Because of the imputed righteousness of Christ they are accounted precious. For Christ’s sake the Lord pardons those that fear Him. He does not see in them the vileness of the sinner. He recognizes in them the likeness of His Son, in whom they believe.” DA 667

God does not see us as a worthless handful of air. He sees us as very precious because of the sacrifice that Jesus made to redeem us. My analogy is not perfect, because we know that God the Father loved us so much that he GAVE Jesus to pay the price for our sins. But we can see that God could love us even more...a worthless handful of dust...because we are special to Jesus. God’s love for Jesus makes us even more special to God.

You, my friend, are a very special treasure to God.