Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the LORD
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.
Hosea 10:12
As spring begins to show its face and flowers start to bloom and signs of new life are everywhere, it brings to my mind something that has been on my heart since early this year. Maybe it’s been a hard year. Maybe the joy that once was yours feels far away and you are weary. Isaiah 61:3 tells us that God wants to bring renewal and restoration. He wants to give us a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. It goes on to say that “they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that HE MAY BE GLORIFIED.” Our Father, the Gardener, is planting us in Himself, for His glory, and we can look to Him expectantly. He causes growth, even when we don’t see the evidence yet. He wants us to experience the fullness of His abundant life!
Continuing on, Isaiah writes: “I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness.” This is how our Father sees us, hidden and completely wrapped in Christ’s righteousness that is now ours by faith. He desires our spirit to be rooted in the identity we have in Him. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”(2 Corinthians 5:17). We are made new, chosen, and fully loved by Him.
“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, who seek the Lord: Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places. And her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and sound of a melody.” (Isaiah 51:3) This is what God is doing! The places of doubt and fear and loneliness and grief are our waste places—and God is making a garden of restoration and rest there. “The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me. You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” (Psalm 16)
The psalmist continues in Psalm 84:1-4 “How lovely are your dwelling places, O LORD of hosts! My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. The bird also has found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. How blessed are those who dwell in Your house! They are ever praising You.”
When we come to the place of knowing that God is enough for our every need, and that He longs to bring us out of weariness into His strength, and out of sadness into joy, we can say that we are the bird that has found her resting place. Our place of rest is His love.
“For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, but My lovingkindness will not be removed from you, and My covenant of peace will not be shaken,” Says the LORD who has compassion on you. O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and your foundations I will lay in sapphires. Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies, and your gates of crystal, and your entire wall of precious stones. (Isaiah 54:10-12)
He wants to transform our lives, making the desolate places beautiful. It brings to mind a quote from Hannah Hurnard’s Hinds’ Feet on High Places: “The Shepherd laughed too. “I love doing preposterous things,” he replied. “Why, I don’t know anything more exhilarating and delightful than turning weakness into strength, and fear into faith, and that which has been marred into perfection.
Let us take our Father at His word and prepare our hearts for the beautiful abundance He makes available to us. We can walk in His truth!
“Your words were found and I ate them, and your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by your name. (Jeremiah 15:16)
That is where our identity is found. We have been called by His name: We are His, and because of this, we can say: “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.” (Psalm 30:11-12)
So let us live expectantly. Let us expect Him to show up, expect Him to be who He has promised to be, expect Him to do good things. Let us walk in joy, and let us prepare for rain.
By: Becky Braun
