Beauty for ashes

“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.” Isaiah 61:3

The truth of God sometimes flows from the most unexpected places. You could be in the middle of a conundrum and there God is, appearing to make it all better. As it is with everything that I write, this was drawn from something God did for me last night. In the midst of a mess I created, something I considered to be big, I was struggling to come to terms with how that could ever be made right and how I could get out of the mess. Then God appeared to me in a dream.

So you know how you get dreams that don't make sense, well this was one of them. So in this dream I was seeing the world through the eyes of this young man. Let us call him Mike and his friend Jamie. He was with his friend and they were rushing to get to his girlfriend’s party, right at the top floor of an apartment building. So running up the flight of stairs this Mike got himself into all sorts of trouble and as a result he started running away because of his mess and Jamie was encouraging him to run away. It seemed there were people chasing them. They ran out onto an open area right outside the apartment building and Jamie jumped into the swimming pool in a bid to fit in with those around him and finally get away from the men chasing them. Mike however saw a very big door, leading into an airplane hanger where the planes are kept. But this door started halfway up the building however. He grabbed onto the door and started swinging on it. The door started closing going inwards towards the private jet and case of medals inside the building. Mike could not do anything to stop it but he managed to jump off from the door right before it hit the private jet and the case of medals inside. Everything was ruined and he knew that even if he was to pay back the money he could never in a lifetime afford all that he had damaged. So he called Jamie and they went back inside the apartment building and started running up the stairs again trying to run away from the police. Jamie kept on telling him that if only he could get a disguise he could blend in and the police would not catch him. But Mike knew this was not right. So midway to his girlfriend’s apartment, he gave up and plonked down on a stair; waiting and ready to face the consequences for his actions. Right there and then the police caught up with him, and the thing that I remember was that it was only one man wearing an orange jumper. On the front of the jumper there was writing in black, it said,”God’s protective services”, or something to that effect. The man asked him to put his hand out in front of him like he was going to put on handcuffs and he started laughing. Mike was very scared and he did not know what to make of it. As they were walking up the stairs the man in the orange jumper was checking Mike’s vitals to see whether he was ok. And then they got to the apartment of the owner of the destroyed jet and medals and the man with the orange jumper knocked on the door. When the owner opened the door he looked puzzled and he did not know what to make of the news he got, but one thing was certain; he was extremely annoyed. Then the man in the orange jumper handed the owner a paper written in red and then he resumed speaking again. He said that the owner should get ready to give Mike flying lessons. I remember feeling kindness and love from the moment that the man in the orange jumper arrived. I woke up feeling overwhelmed with emotions of joy and peace.

Thinking later on about the dream I got a sense of what it could mean for all of us. When we dig holes for ourselves, we tend to condemn ourselves to the point on not even wanting to come face to face with God because we are scared of the punishment or rather consequences of our actions that we rightfully deserve. The distinguishing factor about God though is that He chases us down to protect us, and He gives us more than we deserve if we surrender our messes and bad situations to Him. He takes all those messes and self created situations that we hand over to Him sincerely and He trades them for beauty. This is not even only for new believers only because all of us sin and fall short for it is written, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23. But we can all rest in the assurance that no matter what situation we find ourselves in, His redeeming love is always ready to catch us and give us the beauty we do not deserve.