One tiny, insignificant, boring grain of sand.  What a nuisance if it gets into your sandwich when you are picknicking at the beach.  How irritating to have it rubbing between your toes as you walk home, or to get it on your carpet.  To look at it isn't to gaze at something strikingly magnificent, but put a lot of them together, and you could gaze at the beauty of a beach, or wonder at the harshness of the desert.  Mix it with other things and you can make glass, or crystal, with all its beauty.  Place it in the mouth of an oyster and a beautiful pearl will begin to form.  One grain of sand.

I was reminded of sand as I listened to two friends sharing their testimonies as they were baptised.  It was amazing how important the little things were for them.  The saying of grace before a meal.  The promise (and reality) of constant prayer.  The impact of Sunday School.  The sharing of a family around a meal table.  It was these things that together began to form "the pearl of great price" for them.  Many years later, the moment would come when the picture would all fit together.  Little grains of sand that helped to shape the picture of the God revealed to them in Jesus Christ.

One grain of sand.  No longer useless and meaningless, but capable of creating beautiful scenes, spectacular images.  Just like us.  The seemingly insignificant things of our lives are really the building blocks of greater things.  The small, often unnoticed things have great importance: prayer, grace, encouragement, relating little stories of our experience and understanding of God.  The little grains of sand.  And we could even look on ourselves in the same way.  While we may feel insignificant, in God's family we are a part of His beautiful creation, adding to it in our own way.

One grain of sand!