VISION OF THE THRONE ROOM AND THE GOLDEN THREADS

"THE GIFT"

[IN THIS VISION . . . ]I arrived in Heaven, and was standing in a queue to face the Lord.

Around me were other people carrying gifts, beautifully wrapped and carefully carried to prevent damage. Each person was careful to have their gift ready for when their name was called. I looked at my empty hands, and wondered what was happening. I did not understand why I did not have a gift everyone else seemed to. It was not as if they collected their gifts from somewhere, and it was not as if they arrived with them. Their gifts seemed to be part of them, one with them.

OUR GIFTS TO THE LORD

I asked a few of them about their gifts, to try and understand what was different about me, but the answers were all the same. "We are sorry. We do not know about you. These gifts are the works we have accomplished for our Lord. They are the projects we did, the plans we had for our lives that we brought to fruition as Christians. This is what we are offering to the Lord we have waited our whole lives for this. We do not understand what the reason could be that you do not have such a gift for the Lord."

I became insecure in this and feared the Judgment of the Lord. I could only imagine standing before the Throne of Grace, giftless, and being singled out by the Lord as the only one not bearing a gift. As far as I could see I was the only one who had no gift.

BEFORE THE THRONE

Before I knew it, my name had been called, and I walked slowly towards the Throne of the Lord. It was not that I feared Him not in that way, anyway, but I was imagining me stepping up to the Judgment seat and saying to God "I am sorry all these others have brought You gifts, big and small, and there has been such ceremony each time. Their life s work is before You and You have been pleased with it, I have no such gift to offer You. I do not have a significant thing that I have achieved which consumed me my whole life."

THE LORD SAID, "I'VE KEPT THESE THINGS TO SHOW YOU..."

He rose from His seat, smiled and said "Do not trouble yourself about offering Me a gift today. Come with me I have something to show you. I have been waiting, looking forward to the time when you will come before me. I received from you every day that you walked with Me, and I have kept these things, to show you."

GOLDEN THREADS

He took me to a room, the four walls of which contained a magnificent tapestry. As I looked at it, I saw familiar scenes and details from my life but not so much MY life being illustrated, as the lives of others and the Kingdom of God, where their lives and it's purposes have touched mine. At every point where my life and someone else s touched, there began two golden threads the one leading from my life into theirs, and the other leading from their life into mine. God looked at this Tapestry with deep affection, and began to trace the golden threads with His finger. Each one, from the start to the finish of that thread.

THE TAPESTRY

As I watched His finger, and looked at the expression on His face, I began to see the effect of the Golden threads on the tapestry. I saw how they brightened certain sections that would have been very dark otherwise; how they drew together sometimes two, sometimes more sections with a complexity and intricacy of design that left me astounded; how in certain places they formed a basket of sorts, a support type structure that framed and held a scene from another s life; how sometimes the threads seemed to form a path between areas of the tapestry a path that enabled a flow and a progression from one scene to another with no chance of going astray.

After a long while, He turned to me and said "Do you see? Each golden thread you see before you, is an act of obedience done by you. Sometimes your obedience was taking My urging, and acting, speaking or interceding in another's life. Sometimes that obedience was your ear, tuned for My voice, and your hearing and doing what I asked. Sometimes it was others voices, or My voice, that you chose to hear and in humility, allowed My Spirit to change you.

JOYFULLY WOVEN IN SECRET

I know you could not possibly have seen this from your time on earth. This tapestry has been woven joyfully in secret, by my angels, who have watched and celebrated your life and your obedience to me. This has been a lifetimes work your lifetime, their joyful work. They stand in this audience behind you, honored to have woven this for you. You sent them such volumes and quality of material, that their work was easy. This tapestry has been made for this day, this time, and this place. It is revealed now, to be your gift to Me.

These golden threads were your gift to Me every day of your life. This tapestry is the sum total of your gift to Me. You do not stand before Me empty handed, my little one. You stand before Me obedient, day by day, opportunity by opportunity, and the gift to Me that that obedience is, is so huge that you could not have carried it into My presence even if you had been aware of what it was. It is also more complicated and intricate than human hands could have woven. The beauty of a life poured out as a daily offering, and the beauty of a love expressed through the obedience that is detailed and remembered for all time here before Us, could not have been crafted by human hands. It is beyond human ability to do this thing. This work, I kept for My angels to do."

HIS JUDGMENT OVER MY LIFE!

Somehow, in listening to Him, I had not seen the room change, and while the tapestry remained, it was as if there were no longer walls. We were back before the Throne of Grace, and the Words He spoke were no longer a gentle conversation. They were His Judgment over my life. As with each life that had gone before me, Heaven broke into thunderous applause at the Judgment, and as I walked away from the Throne to the place reserved for me, I began to realize that my steps were taking me past and into a gallery of people who were familiar beyond all expectation. As I saw their faces, I saw reflected in them the golden threads that I had sowed in their life, and began to see in myself, the threads that they had sown in my life.

These people were my inheritance...I was awed at the richness of it all.

By Vaughan Granier, South Africa