February 19, 2001
The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.
Isaiah 35:1-4
As I read through these verses in Isaiah this morning I was struck by the thought that God is able to take what is barren and cause it to be super-abundant. Whether its a reference to a moral wasteland, as this verse is, or an physical desert.. not only can God do this - but he delights in it. He wants to take a desert and not just make it alive but fill it with beauty and majesty unlike the human eye has ever seen!!! He is the God who "...calls things that are not as though they were." -Romans 4:17b. The God who caused a valley of dry bones to live - Ezekiel 37. More than all that, God delights in helping us to become what we otherwise could not be. Hebrews 11:34 says that God enabled their weaknesses to become strengths. Even though I have seen God strengthen me in weak areas over time whenever I face a particularly challenging one in my character it's very hard to imagine ever being different. I have prayed for years to become a more emotional person and I realized this weekend that I am becoming that very thing. It is, of course, not at all what I expected... it's certainly not the most fun I've ever had. But I know that God is taking a barren deserted place inside me and he's making it alive; and not just alive but over time he will change me in this area in ways that can only be described as beautiful and awe-inspiring -- not because of me but because it is so clearly something only God could bring about.