Beauty for Ashes: Can we be a blessing in darkness

 Have you ever prayed that God will increase your influence so that I can be a blessing to others?  Sometimes, in the midst of that prayer, I feel confronted by darkness.  I hear of devastating situations and feel distracted, as if darkness is trying to pull my focus off God's goodness.  I feel confronted by situations that seem to go from bad to worse; they appear impossible to fix, correct, or restore.   

I have come to realize that when I am praying to be a blessing to others, the seemingly impossible and dark situations that come to my doorstep are not distractions to shock and scare me, but rather God's answer to the prayers I have been praying. I have begun to realize that prayers asking God to allow me to be a blessing mean that I will be "given" situations that need light.  In those situations that I feel shocked by darkness, I have, in fact, been "entrusted" with "impossible" and dark situations, entrusted with situations that require God's wonderful goodness and divine intervention.  I have been offered a mountain, a valley of dry bones, a drought, a ruin and dead place.  I have been offered the opportunity to be a Royal representative of the Kingdom, anointed to bring God's goodness and order, moving mountains, resurrecting dry bones, and rebuilding the ruins.  These situations entrusted to me are an answer to prayer, a gift from God, an invitation to enter into the calling to live in a His kingdom and have the faith to see beyond the now and the visible. 

My prayer today is that when we are confronted with dark and dead and impossible situations, we will see the invitation of God to become speakers to dry bones, a resurrection people, rebuilders of ruins, firestarters.  We will see the gift of God, the plan of God, the way that He entrusts these situations to us because we are Kingdom people.  I pray that we will accept the invitation to bring Kingdom grace to a chaotic earth through outrageous goodness as we walk with a breakthrough-King.

Isaiah 61:3 (CEV) 

The Lord has sent me to comfort those who mourn,
3     especially in Jerusalem.
He sent me to give them flowers in place of their sorrow,
olive oil in place of tears, and joyous praise
    in place of broken hearts