Ashes

My child, sometimes you view your life as nothing but a heap of ashes but I see opportunity! Opportunity to mark your life with a crown of beauty, flooded with a downpour of joy. I see opportunity to give you garments of joyful worship, causing you to reach out and take hold of the blessings I’ve already poured out on you, rejoicing in your journey.

This crown of beauty I am talking about looks like light, displaying the truth of who I am. This crown draws people to me and changes nations. I love to see you wearing this crown. I love to see you using it – the authority I have given you, delightful and strong, sharp and well-formed.

This is the moment I have chosen to call you to attention, to focus on the situation you are in: see every particle of that pile of ash. Count them. Encounter the brokenness: don’t hold back! Mourn it, pouring out all your ashes to me.

And this I have promised, that I will give you the crown of beauty for those ashes. Therefore, give each one of those ashes to me! Leave nothing out! Hand every one of them over.

Activation: Sometimes we don’t believe that God will really give us a glorious crown of beauty. So, we hide that ash – the painful and disappointing results of the past – and move on to a new day. Instead, we must give those ashes to God. We have to experience our real situation fully in order to encounter our real God fully. So get on your knees before him and mourn that which has gone wrong and is not fixed yet. Open up to God. Write down the three things that are the greatest ash heaps in your life and talk them out with him, telling him all the emotions that you feel about them and why. This is giving the ashes to him. And the crown will follow – His promise.

Isaiah 61:3 (BSB)

. . . to console the mourners in Zion – 

to give them a crown of beauty for ashes,

the oil of joy for mourning,

and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair.

So they will be called oaks of righteousness,

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

Isaiah 62:3-4 (BSB)

You will be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD,

a royal diadem in the palm of your God.

No longer will you be called Forsaken,

nor your land named Desolate;

but you will be called Hephzibah,

and your land Beulah;

for the LORD will take delight in you,

and your land will be His bride.