Beautifier

Daniel‬ ‭3‬:‭20‬-‭21 And he commanded certain mighty men of valor who were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, and cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their coats, their trousers, their turbans, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.‬‬

Daniel‬ ‭3‬:‭26‬-‭27‬ Then Nebuchadnezzar went near the mouth of the burning fiery furnace and spoke, saying, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here.” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego came from the midst of the fire. And the satraps, administrators, governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together, and they saw these men on whose bodies the fire had no power; the hair of their head was not singed nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them.
‭‭

Just like the Hebrew boys came out unscathed, God wants us to know that you could age so gracefully that the scent of oldness isn’t emitted by you or associated around you.

We have lost two biological members from my nuclear family, but when people look at my mother or me, they term us rich and void of sad experiences or dire trials. You better trust Him when He says He wipes tears.

Ecclesiastes says ‘better is the ending of a thing, than its beginning.’ When I examine the ending of Job, He proves that He can restore more than one had, and make it look like he or she never went through bad times. In fact, it can be too good that men forget how the shame or misery felt like. This is what Joseph based on to name his son Manasseh, which meant ‘God has made me forget.’ Forget what? His prison-time emptiness, and false accusations. He never looked like an ex convict. No one even cared why he got into prison in the first place!

I guess that’s what God can do. He is a beautifier!

Bill Johnson accuses Him of using tragedy so well that people end up thinking He sponsored the tragedy. Joseph did not smell like ‘prison’ or ‘slave’! Ruth did not smell like widowhood. David on that battlefield didn’t look like a shepherd or a despised last born. He appeared as a class-apart man of combat when he took out Goliath. His family that never respected him a bit had to offer a standing ovation to him after that battle. Now they had to be his cool friend, since he was to marry the king’s daughter. He was no longer a peasant but a prince! God for you!

Yes, you might be old but He can reinvigorate you. You’d have been fired or are in deep debt. The worse it is, the greater His measure to beautify it, for if it is mild, the world may never understand the range, the length of how far he can transform ashes to beauty! You’d be divorced, but oh I know Him for taking away shame and granting glory! (Psalms 84:11) Barren Elizabeth was now with child in her old age. Hannah not only received a son, but a prophet who commissioned the kings of Israel!

This God can magnify, and may He consider your lowly state like Mary, and mark you for a greater purpose, that people who are from where you come, wonder at its unprecedentedness and call you blessed. And may the beauty, when it manifests in your testimony, be so good, that you find yourself hiding it, even when it is hard to hide, like Elizabeth when she conceived.

Job after losing all, God gave him double. When his siblings came to visit him, and acquaintances, I’m sure many doubted that he had had really lost at all. Before he lost his daughters, nothing had been written about them. In chapter 42 verse 15, the Bible says no woman was found in the land as beautiful as them.

Again, notice that in chapter one, no description of his daughters was mentioned. I believe God wanted to remind us that He is our exceeding beautifier, giving them to us as a benchmark.

The God who set on fire a bush, and yet it never got consumed, resides in you; to manifest the same effect, that whichever fire you go through, when it is extinguished, none of your leaves or branches would have ashened. Now, yield to Him. Yield to this beautifier of yours, and love on Him!

•

Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭24‬-‭25‬ Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived; and she hid herself five months, saying, “Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

Isaiah 61:3 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 may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified
‭‭