Beauty for Ashes

I have chosen scripture from Isaiah as my second memory verse for Beth Moore's Siesta Scripture Memory Team.  I will only be memorizing verse three, but here is the verse from the beginning:

¹ “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me,

      Because the LORD has anointed Me

      To preach good tidings to the poor;

      He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,

      To proclaim liberty to the captives,

      And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

       ² To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD,

      And the day of vengeance of our God;

      To comfort all who mourn,

       ³ To console those who mourn in Zion,

      To give them beauty for ashes,

      The oil of joy for mourning,

      The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;

      That they may be called trees of righteousness,

      The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

 

I lost my dad in a plane crash about ten years ago.  Shortly after that, my grandfather died in a tornado.  I went through a period of grief and struggled in many ways on how to deal with such loss.  I felt at many times hopeless and worthless and could not grasp any understanding of who God was.  I just did not understand why such horrific things happened.  A few years after the plane crash, someone introduced me to this scripture.  When I read "the oil of joy for mourning" I was deeply perplexed.  What in the world could that mean and how was I even suppossed to begin to feel any type of joy when such things were taken away from me? 

Then another year later or so, I came across this poem...

Light after darkness, gain after loss,
Strength after suffering, crown after cross.
Sweet after bitter, song after sigh,
Home after wandering, praise after cry.
Sheaves after sowing, sun after rain,
Sight after mystery, peace after pain.
Joy after sorrow, calm after blast,
Rest after weariness, sweet rest at last.
Near after distant, gleam after gloom,
Love after loneliness, life after tomb.
After long agony, rapture of bliss!
Right was the pathway leading to this!
By Francis Ridley Havergal
 

After diving back into God's word, I came to the understand that the scripture from Isaiah is a prophecy concerning the coming of Christ.  When you read the verse from the point of view of Christ...  you can start to understand that in MY weakness, He makes me strong.  That when we turn to Christ in our time of turmoil, when we feel like everything around us has turned to ash - what He did for us on the cross trades that ugliness for beauty. 

 

What does it mean to trust?

For my next Siesta Scripture Memory Verse, I have chosen....

Psalm 3:5-6

⁵ Trust in the LORD with all your heart
   and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
   and he will make your paths straight.^[a]

 

What does it look like when we trust in the Lord with all of our hearts?  To me, this means that although we may not understand what God is up to, that we acknowledge that He has a better path for us!  The wonderful glorious amazing thing is, when we stop trying to lean on ourselves and stop trying to explain away why things are happening and instead trust that God is going to use us, our paths become straight.  We quit feeling like we are spinning our wheels and going no where! 

 

Father God, I pray that in all my ways I submit to you.  I pray that you help me to develop my trust in You alone.  Although I may not understand what is going on I pray that I quit worrying about it. 

Be Still

I am joining up with Beth Moore and her Siesta Scripture Memory team this year!  To kick the New Year off, I am going to memorize Psalm 46:10.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.”

I feel that God is calling me this year to be still, to quiet the noise that does not matter, to still the chaos of a household of three children.  The business of running them from one sport to another and barely making it back home to cook dinner without falling into bed exhausted.  

The command to "be still" comes from the Hiphil stem of the verb (רפה) rapha (meaning to be weak, to let go, to release), which might better be translated as, "cause yourselves to let go" or "let yourselves become weak" (in poetic contexts, the noun form rephai'im was sometimes used as a synonym for "the place of the dead").  But to what end are we to "be still," "let go," "surrender," and even to "die to ourselves"?  I think that what this verse really means is to come to a realization that God is in control, so there really isn't any need to jump through hoops to try to please others when the only thing we should be trying to do is please HIM.

Father God, I pray that in this busy season of my life that you help me to learn to be still.  I pray as we start t his new year that I will develop a desire to wake up early and in the still and quietness of my house that I start my day by looking to you.  I want to develop good habits that will help reflect your love and peace.  Father God, I pray for this new year and for my family.  I pray that we make your priorities ours and we pray that you cover us with your love.  In Jesus name, amen.