… and for a limited time only, you can get one cloak for the price of two!!
I think I sometimes forget how God works. Luckily, unlike a computer or some power tools, God still works, even if you get it wrong…
Last year I prayed for so many people and the results were, well… not great. The devil was right there, sowing seeds of doubt, “maybe your faith is light? Maybe you didn’t use the right words…? Maybe you didn’t think deep enough thoughts? Remember, you were thinking about that work thing…”
But maybe God is not a Prayer-ATM healing and removing difficulty at our convenience? Maybe God is in a process to strengthen a life and the difficulty I want Him to remove is the exercise that builds Faith today? … and that is more important than answering my prayers that was prayed out of a need of convenience….
God works, even if we forgot to read the manual… or skipped a few pages.
Isaiah 61:3 was made famous by Michael W Smith’s song “surrounded” (that is how we fight our battles!) – He starts the song behind the piano with the words: “… the Word says: In a spirit of heaviness, put on a garment of praise…”
“..To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”
(Isaiah 61:3 NKJV)
We know this works. We understand that there is something spiritual happening when we stand up in praise or bow low in worship during difficult times… but for some reason, I want the burdens to go away… to magically disappear… but that is not how a coat works, is it?
If I open my front door, and there is a storm raging, putting on a coat doesn’t part the clouds and bring back blue skies and chirping birds.
The coat is my protection. It keeps me warm in the cold. The cold doesn’t go away. It keeps me dry from snow and rain, it doesn’t turn it into sunshine.
The coat allows me to function even though the storm rages around me!
I imagine it as holding the world out, while pulling the Holy Spirit in tight to my soul (where you cannot miss His guiding words)
Put on the coat, walk into the storm, and those around you will see the testimony of God’s provision of strength and perseverance:
“They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”
(Isaiah 61:3b NIV)
