Get Off Your Ash

Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes” (Job 2:8).

Here we see a picture of a man who took an instrument to scratch his itch and sat down among the ashes.  There are many times as we journey on in this process with God we feel itches.  Sometimes things with God just don’t go the way we planned. Some how the road He takes us down is not the road we think we would have chosen, or perhaps things just don’t pan out as we assumed they would.

You must realize that God knows the end from the beginning, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.  I say: my purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” (Isaiah 46:10, NIV).  His ways are higher than your ways and His thoughts higher than your thoughts, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8, 9, NIV).  He has a plan of welfare and not calamity to give you a future and a hope, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV).  He has predestined you to be conformed to the image of His dear son, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son that he might be the firstborn of many brothers” (Romans 8:29, NIV).  He is the author and finisher of your faith, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross despising the shame, and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2, NKJV).

You have a choice and that is to sit down on your ash, the thing you don’t like that seems painful for the moment but in the end will produce a full measure of eternity, or you can rise and walk in the newness of life He has set before you.  We all have an individual ash we just can’t seem to get off of. An issue of life we can’t part with, a hurt we can’t let go of, a brother or sister we can’t forgive, a memory we can’t release.  But realize the Father is waiting for you to rise up and allow Him to restore to you seven fold and give you beauty for your ashes,  “To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called the trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He might be glorified” (Isaiah 61:3, NKJV).