Beauty from Mess

As I look out of the kitchen window and marvel at God’s creativity, I can’t help thinking that, out of the dead of winter and the chaos of a garden that’s a work in progress, God brings beauty from the mess. As spring begins and shoots and buds appear, even in the mess of green or bare branches a hint of colour speaks life and hope.

I’m reminded that, no matter what the situation and how messy it might seem, the Lord is in there with us. And in spite of all that the mess can look like, there’s still beauty within it, if you allow the Lord to show you.

There are so many verses in the bible that encourage us to keep looking to the Lord, to keep persevering; ‘See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland’ Isaiah 43:19; ‘I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten’ (Joel 2:25), ‘Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?’ (Matthew 6:26-34), ‘Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and tomorrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith’ (Luke 12:27-28), and in Isaiah 61, verse 3, it talks about bringing beauty out of the ashes. What hope He offers. Our God is a restoring God, a redeeming father, and even if we feel like we can’t go on, can I encourage you today that, in spite of the mess, God is still at work making all things good for His glory.

Prayer: Father help us today to glimpse Your glory and to hold on to You, even in the mess, trusting that You are at work to bring beauty from the ashes. Amen.