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.
To grant to those who mourn in Zion the following: to give them a [a]turban instead of dust [on their heads, a sign of mourning], the oil of joy instead of mourning, the garment [expressive] of praise instead of a disheartened spirit. So they will be called the trees of righteousness [strong and magnificent, distinguished for integrity, justice, and right standing with God], the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
Isaiah 61:3 (AMP)
Footnotes
[a] Isaiah 61:3 In the Hebrew there is a kind of wordplay here as “turban” (Heb pe’er) and dust (epher) have the same consonants and similar vowels.
3 You will also be [considered] a crown of glory and splendor in the hand of the Lord, and a royal [a]diadem [exceedingly beautiful] in the hand of your God.
4 It will no longer be said of you [Judah], “Azubah (Abandoned),” nor will it any longer be said of your land, “Shemamah (Desolate)”;
Isaiah 62:3-4 (AMP)
But you will be called, “Hephzibah (My Delight is in Her),” and your land, “[b]Married”; for the Lord delights in you, and to Him your land will be married [owned and protected by the Lord].
Footnotes
[a] Isaiah 62:3 Lit headband.
[b] Isaiah 62:4 I.e. Beulah, pronounced Be-oo-lah.
#lionbites
Unapologetically Marcia 