Hot wax.

Let me preface this. (Usually I save my caveats for the end, but I think I should really let you know at the beginning this time). This is a bunch of rambling thoughts, the beginning of meditation. I'll hopefully post another blog when I've thought it out more.

I was reading something today in Spanish that mentioned Song of Solomon 8:6 "Set me as a seal upon your heart, As a seal upon your arm; For love is as strong as death."

In Spanish, it reads: "Ponme como un sello sobre tu corazón, como una marca sobre tu brazo; Porque fuerte es como la muerte el amor"

"sello" is the word translated "seal" in English. It means the same thing, but the first definition I learned for "sello" in Spanish class was postage stamp. That got me thinking about stamping, like what my mom likes to do. She likes to try to get me to enjoy crafty things, which I do to a point... Anyways, I remember learning how to stamp. I had to press the stamp down on the ink pad so hard to get the whole thing wet. Sometimes I had to press it several times if the inkpad was especially dry. Then I had to center the stamp, carefully place the stamp on the paper and press down carefully, evenly, and extremely hard. Only then did I get a beautiful stamp.

God says that He has sealed us. We are stamped with the Holy Spirit.

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. -- 1 Cor 1:21-22

In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. -- Ephesians 1:13-14

Now, I know from stamping experience that you have to put a lot of careful pressure and force to get stamping right. I submit to you that our lives are the same way. We have seal of the Holy Spirit, but that doesn't mean that it is an easy task. It takes pressure, it takes care, but we know that it will be beautiful in the end. The fashioning and shaping happening will have a Christ-like ending. There is nothing more masterful than that.

I also thought about letters back in the old days, before postage stamps. They had ways of securing and marking the "envelope". They really were called "seals" then. Often a king would have a fancy ring or something that he would press into hot wax, that way it was "sealed" with the King's seal. Hot wax; pressure; molding. Sounds painful. But with that seal, the whole world will know that we are Christ's. We are sealed. Imprinted with the King's seal.

Am I living up to the stamp on my heart?