My first mobile phone was a Phillips Savvy. It had an aerial poking out of the top, a tiny screen and could store up to ten text messages. These days I would be embarrassed to be seen with it – it’s a relic from the past. But this week the Royal Mint has reminded me that at the heart of every obsolete piece of tech lies a nugget of gold. Literally. It may be small, but it remains as valuable as it ever was; and now the Royal Mint is set to recover each tiny scrap and turn them into commemorative coins. The things we once threw away will shine again.
I’m reminded of something St Paul once wrote to a church in Corinth. He told them that they were like ‘jars of clay’ but contained something very precious, ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God’.
We may look at our lives and feel like a Phillips Savvy or a Nokia brick, but God sees something different. He sees that we have the capacity to carry his very presence and to shine his light in the world. No wonder Paul urged Christians in Philippi to ‘shine like stars in the universe’. If we all did so perhaps our world would be a brighter place to live.
