There are seasons in our lives where it can feel as if we are slogging through thick mud. Every step takes enormous energy and it feels as if little progress is made.
That has been my last six months and why I haven’t posted. But I have a word for you. It’s time to—
SHINE – It’s a new day!
The last several months, it has felt as if I’m wearing lead boots walking through life as responsibility after responsibility came to rest upon my husband and me after the unexpected passing of my mother followed by my father-in-law just four months later.
Suddenly, our days were not our own and we have simply had to walk each day holding on to Him as we addressed the new issues that have come our way.
For someone reading this, perhaps it was your own medical diagnosis, or the loss of a job, a divorce, or another “unexpected” that broke through and completely changed your world.
It is in those moments in which we sometimes can do little but hang on to Jesus as life takes us down paths we didn’t ask to go.
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Yet, there is a word in this season to us as His light breaks through the clouds to…
SHINE It’s a new day!
Do you remember a time in your past–perhaps when you were at the beach, or playing outside during your childhood–in which the clouds parted and the sun suddenly reappeared to shine gloriously upon you? When you could feel the warmth in a spring day upon your face, the gentle breeze on your back and and hear the song of nature from the birds and frogs? 
Think back to one of those moments, because that is the feeling of His word to you right now.
Arise shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the people. BUT the Lord will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you and the nations will come to your light. Isaiah 60:1-3 NIV
Let me share with you the deeper more expressive meaning of that amazing word from the Hebrew root of some of the words. It actually reads:
Arise (from oppression and depression) and shine for your light (illumination, happiness and morning) has come!
That is a present tense word! It has come now!
And the glory (honor, majesty and wealth) of the Lord has risen upon you.
The word for glory in that verse is kabowd. It means: His splendor, honor, majesty and wealth that He bestows upon us is now (present tense) risen upon us.
For behold darkness (misery, destruction, death, ignorance and wickedness) will cover (conceal or cover up) the entire world and deep darkness (gloom like a stormy sea that has clouds for a garment) will be like a cloak over the people. (Don’t we see that now? It is exactly what we see in the world around us!)
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BUT the Lord will rise upon you!
And His glory will appear (will mark and be discernable) upon you!
So no matter how dark it has become around you. How much mud and mire you have had to walk through–how much oppression or depression has tried to settle upon you–He has MARKED you with His glory!
And the result? Nations will come to your light.
My friend it’s time to pull your shoulders back, feel the sun on your face and allow His favor and light to shine through you and out of you to others to dispel the deep darkness that has cloaked the world around you.
YOU are the light–His Presence carrier. And that Light burns up the darkness!
