Monday, August 31, 2009

Soaring Joy

I think today I am challenged to really be transformed in a specific way of thinking. I was finishing Micah, and I came across Micah 4:9-13. It is not so much that those verses jumped out as me as that a concept jumped out at me. God is telling His people, through Micah, that He is about to bring the worst calamity on them they have ever endured. He is about to allow them to be conquered and carried away from the land He gave them. Total devastation. Total destruction. Total removal from their very way of life. I have always been a little depressed when reading through some of the prophets and their words of doom and destruction. But, this morning even as my heart broke for the grief, it soared as well. Mixed within those words were promises of restoration, and somehow I felt it. I felt a joy and peace - a sense of "this is finally it - after this your hearts will be Mine. This is the moment when all that you have been taught will suddenly become a part of your hearts." A lot of really crushing "moments" seem to be going on all around me in the lives of so many people. I am praying hard and grieving over each one. But, this passage today just filled my grieving heart with soaring joy - no, the grief is not gone, but the joy is making the grief beautiful and giving new life to my prayers. When in the lives of believers there comes a moment when all seems to be lost, we must hang on to hope. Beauty is coming. He sees what we cannot. And what He sees is beautiful.

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