For you shall go out in joy; and be led back in peace;

the mountains and the hills before you shall all burst into song,

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Instead of the thorn shall come up the strong cypress;

Instead of the brier shall come up the beautiful myrtle;

and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,

for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.   

Isaiah 55:12-13

 

When Isaiah wrote these verses, he was making a promise to the people who were in exile.  The Israelites were beaten down and feeling pretty hopeless.  But Isaiah reminded them that God was with them, doing work where they couldn’t always see it, where they didn’t always know the end result.  

But it was happening.
And when it was done – when the work of God is finished – the end result is the verses we have before us today: joy, peace, singing, clapping… beautiful things.
This is what God does.
God makes beautiful things.
And when they happen, when they are finally in front of us, we see them for what they are – a memorial to God.

 

“The Message” paraphrase of these verses says verse 13 like this:

No more thistles, but giant sequoias,
   no more thornbushes, but stately pines—
Monuments to me, to God,
   living and lasting evidence of God.

Isn’t that lovely?

If your life is feeling like it’s full of little weeds – if it’s full of thorns – know that God is working, making it into something beautiful – like sequoias and stately pines.  

And when God does it – when those thorns and thistles are made into something new – Isaiah says we’ll see them as monuments to God. Living evidence of the work of God in our midst, that will not be cut off. That can’t be cut down. That will not turn back into thistles and thorns.  

God makes beautiful things out of the worst life has to give us.

No matter what you are going through today – no matter how you feel, know that God is with you in it.
God is always present with you in the thistles and thornbushes of life.
When you come out of them – and you will – you will go out in JOY.
And all of creation will be celebrating with you.

You make Beautiful Things.