Beautiful things…In the Ruins

Isaiah 58:10-12

 if you pour yourself out for the hungry

    and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

    and your gloom be as the noonday.

And the Lord will guide you continually

    and satisfy your desire in scorched places

    and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

    like a spring of water,

    whose waters do not fail.

 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

    you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

    the restorer of streets to dwell in.

I love what’s beautiful.

I love a good story of overcoming.

I love knowing that there was a process and a struggle….and that it resulted in a victory.

I will applaud the waiting for incredible outcomes every time….but for others not for me.

For me - I am not a fan of the process. I don’t like the limbo of waiting on outcomes. I want immediate growth.

I am aware of the fact that rich and lasting growth only comes after waiting and investing in the process.

Yet, I’m completely guilty of wanting the goods without the hard path. Nevertheless, I am so very familiar with being called to the hard. 

Lately as I experience the winter season, I’m searching daily for a break from the cold.

I long for relief and reprieve from the ongoing battle and storm that is seemingly raging around my kids and in my heart.

I know better than this…praying for relief.

Long ago the Lord pressed heavy on my heart not to pray for relief — He specifically told me to pray for the ability to stand up underneath it….to pray for a supernatural willingness to walk within the ruins of broken lives.

To be a tool in the work of restoring what was meant to be lost and destroyed.

To stand in the gap ….in the space between what had begun in chaos and complication… and what could and would be wholeness and restoration.

I think that it’s easy for me to be caught up with the latter part of that pressing. I love and look forward to the wholeness and restoration but the ruins……standing and walking in that in-between place. I do not long for that. I fight it and avoid it when I can. I try jumping up and out of that low place clinging to the end result before its time.

My prayer these days is to really embrace the low..the ruined places that hold all the broken pieces that the world has deemed unfit and irreparable.

I am trying hard to remember to have joy in that place. Not the light hearted joy that is not based in truth but the kind that has been saturated in Jesus — in the seeing Him work in the midst of what is so ugly and hard.

Of course I long to see and experience the victory and I can’t wait to grab hold of the rich grace and growth that’s waiting on the other side of the ruins — the thing is, there is richness NOW. It’s right here in the work…THIS work.

We don’t have to wait for the rebuilding to experience victory. We can walk in richness and grace now — as we remain in the ruins.

We just have to be willing to stay there in that hard place being the tool HE called us to be. We have to recognize that work is being done.

I want to willingly stand in that gap and keep myself firmly planted in the work He has called me to do. He promises to keep me watered and strengthened.

I need only to lean into Him.

So I’ll stay. Here in the ruins, and I’ll trust Him for what’s next.