Beauty from Ashes

I have heard the term "beauty from ashes" a thousand times in the past week. It wasn't the first time I 've heard the term but I've always just brushed it off. Since I've heard it so much lately, I decided to pay it some attention.  So here we go...

The Bible says in Isaiah that God will give us beauty instead of ashes. In Biblical times it was the custom for people in great times of mourning and difficulty to lay down in ashes. Just imagine this...you’ve got a big problem in your life so you just lay down in a pile of dirty ashes. There is absolutely nothing beautiful about this scenario. So where does the beauty come from? Can ashes really be turned into something beautiful?  Scripture says that God is able to take the situation that burdens you or causes you pain and turn it into beauty. He can pick you up out of the ash pile of life and make something beautiful out of you. The Hebrew word for ashes is epher and the Hebrew word for beauty is pheer. Just move the e and you have a new word. Just as quickly as you can move one letter, God can to turn your sorrow into joy. He speaks and it is already done.

Isn't it amazing that God's promise is greater than your past, your failures, your character flaws, your difficulites and all the obstacles that stand in your way? We have to choose not to let what has happened to us define us. We have to allow God to use those things to refine us. The best way to do that is place our total trust in Him... not in the world, not in other men, not in our gifts or talents. I truly believe we are often brought to these desert places in our lives so that we learn to place that our complete trust in Him. 

Casting Crowns has a song that says, "Come to the well, all who thirst will thirst no more and all who search will find what their souls long for. The world will try but will never fill. So, leave it all behind and come to the well." I believe that is exactly what we need to do. We need to go to the "well" over and over and over again. God continually welcomes us to come to Him, place our trust in Him, and be changed by Him.

Life is hard. We all have scars to prove it. Today I am thankful that we can lift our scarred hands to the Giver of Life. We can lift up our hands and lay down our sorrows, our troubles, and our past. I am just so amazed by that thought...that our mighty God would be so accepting and forgiving. That He would be so willing redirect our lives. Those things that Satan means for evil, God changes those to good! Hallelujah! Only our awesome God can bring beauty from ashes!