Beauty

If you don’t know what beauty is
(which is highly doubtful) then I believe you will find beauty in the month
that we spend together, which is in about 2 weeks…mmm…(yes, that’s an
mmm…like a enjoying a good cup of tea mmm) lol….I am dripping with anticipation.
But first a confession before I move on to beauty…I need to catch up a ton
with the Journey….so this is kind of my own “make up” assignment
until I get caught up…I don’t have the Journey with me at the moment
otherwise I’d be doing that…but anyway this blog isn’t at all about me so I
will go on….

If you know God you have the
capability of knowing and experiencing the most beautiful things on earth in
the deepest sort of way. The Trinity, Heaven, Salvation, The Bible, Creation,
The diversity of Humans (in any and every way), relationships, music, drama,
food, and language are just a few of the most beautiful things on earth.
Oh…marriage…okay that’s my last one…but it is also an important one
because it is meant to resemble our relationship to God. And praise God, he put
that in my mind, this is now going to make this all make sense!

Marriage is the most beautiful relationship that humans can
have amongst themselves. There are so many things that go into it that make it
so special. Now, if we look at Ephesians 5: 22-33 we find an explanation of our
relationship to God illustrated by the marriage relationship! I love this
stuff, because even though none of us are married, we all can experience
something so much better, right now…that being a relationship with God. God
(the husband) loves the bride (the church) passionately and unconditionally,
purifying them so that they are made perfect and pure so they can be united
perfectly. Christ laid down his life for us so that we could enter into an
intimate relationship with him, just as a husband does all he can to show love
for his wife. And the wife submits to the husband and shows that she trusts him
even with her own life.

So how is it that two people basically laying down their own
lives, especially Jesus laying down his life for us and dying a brutal death
such a beautiful thing to us? Well, it’s that process of being washed, made
radiant, without a single stain, wrinkle, or blemish! But only when we submit and
respect God’s authority. But we know that that is where the problems
start…that is where the marriage relationship hit’s the rocks you could
say…

Today I read Isaiah 30:15-26. Isaiah was a prophet,
spreading the word to the Israelites that if they did not submit to his
authority and respond to his love, then there would be undeniable consequences
with unchangeable results, yet God speaks to Israel words of grace through the
mouth of Isaiah! And He speaks words of grace to us too…even when we mess up
and he even gives us restoration!

15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
“In repentance and rest is your
salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.

(Yes I
omitted 16-17 but for length)

18
Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

19
O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he
will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. 20
Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. 21
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice
behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 22 Then you will
defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you
will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with
you!”

23
He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food
that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle
will graze in broad meadows. 24 The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will
eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. 25 In the day of great
slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high
mountain and every lofty hill. 26 The moon will shine like the sun, and the
sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when
the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

Yes…Yes…Yes…these words are like the best (insert favorite drink) tea ever made!
And that is just about the worst comparison I could make because God is so much
more than a good cup of tea…but so often we make God seem like something less
than a good cup of tea by the way we treat that intimate relationship he has
called us into!

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your
strength, but you would have none of it. Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to
you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed
are all who wait for him!” Oh, how we might know and might embrace the beauty
of this grace that has been shed on us! Oh, how we might see God work this
grace in the lives of the people in Swaziland, and he is already, I have been
there and seen it!

As this grace flows…the glory of the Lord will shine like this passage says…and
even now as we become more like Christ in the next 2 weeks, the month after
that, and the rest of our lives, he will make us reflect that bright glory! He
will bind up the bruises of his people and heal the wounds he inflicted, for
those wounds that we have now are given to us to make us stronger and to love
him more and to see the beauty of NOT having to face a death by self-inflicted
wounds. Surely, all we would do without Christ is hurt others and condemn
ourselves by that. Read the end of Isaiah 30 and see the wrath we are spared
of. We cannot hide this grace, we cannot hide this beauty.

May the beauty of Christ in us shine forth and help to win
the hearts of many!