A CROWN OF BEAUTY

Isaiah 61:3 To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.

Life happens sometimes and we can feel a bit side swiped when we didn’t see something coming and it can leave us mourning the loss of someone or something that is important to us.

It might be a career position, an investment that went wrong, a marriage that didn’t work out, a child who goes off the rails, or someone we hold dear leaving. In fact it can be any number of things that are important to us for one reason or another, and as someone said to me, when they’ve gone we can feel like we’ve had a bereavement.

The good news is our God is compassionate, and He never leaves us where we’re at. He has promised us a crown of beauty and I love the added bonus of a joyous blessing in place of mourning. 

We all struggle with a loss of some kind at some point. If you’re in that place today let God encourage you to know He is going to turn your sadness around into wonderful praise. He’s going to make you so strong that He compares you to a great oak tree.

Isaiah says in verse 7 that if you’ve been shamed or dishonoured that He’ll make sure you’ll come into a place of double honour. He goes on and says ‘You will possess a double portion of prosperity in your land and everlasting joy will be yours.’

You see there is another chapter in our book still to be read and it’s up to us to turn the page and see what God has written and planned before we ever arrived. God sees our whole future, we may only see today.

If we keep trusting Him and keep our eyes on Him, and if we’ll let God work, and choose to have a grateful attitude, He will bring us to that place of peace and joyous blessing He’s promised us.

Let’s walk into our new week knowing our God goes with us and whatever we feel we may have lost, believe for the crown of beauty and ask the Lord to help us let go of the ashes.😊In Jesus name. Amen.

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

Photo by Julia Taubitz on Unsplash