Corona Devo 3083

It is Winter in Ohio...and so there are no leaves on the trees.  Bare and bald trunks and branches stand naked in lines and clusters along the freeway, waiting for Spring buds and soon-to-come (Spring-to-come) green-leafed coverings. 

The trees are brownish-gray and completely barren.  Without leaves, there is nothing much to see with them.

Except hawks.

I keep a hopeful eye out for hawks while on freeway drives throughout the entire year, but never are they more visible than when a tree's leaves have been stripped from its limbs.

As we motored down the highway and zoomed-by tree after tree, I think I counted ten hawks during a forty-minute drive yesterday.  

In Spring and Summer and even Fall, they perch hidden among the foliage, but in Winter, their white hawk-chests give them away long before our vehicle passes them.  

The unleafed trees provide visibility to the hawk's beauty.

The starkness allows for (makes-room-for) the revealing of often hidden hawks.

~~~

Is God allowing some barrenness in our lives in order to reveal the (often hidden-in-our-haste) beauty of intimacy with Him?  

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him...  ~Job 13:15  

The Winter's removal of foliage and camouflage allows full-view of any hawks perched in the trees alongside the highway.  Perhaps our Lord is cutting-to-the-chase with us today.  Maybe He is clearing-away the distractions, disruptions, and superficialities that we might not even have known that we were hiding behind.  Is it possible that our Heavenly Father wants authentic time and relation with us, and He is willing to clear-some-space to establish it?

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. (8) Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. (9) But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (10) That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  ~II Corinthians 12:7-10 

Are we in a bare and bald state-of-heart today?  
Due to life-circumstances, do we feel vulnerable and exposed?   

We are not alone, and God desires to meet us right here.  

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.   ~John 3:17

In our vulnerability there lies an invitation to intimacy.   

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.  ~Jeremiah 31:3

If, like a leaf-less tree: we feel ugly and bare today...we can know that God spots something strong and beautiful in us.  Indeed, He created us with His strength and beauty within us, and our trials and hardships reveal our faith and our resilience in God.

• We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; (9) persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. (10) We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (11) For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.   ~II Corinthians 4:8-11 

• He must increase, but I must decrease.  ~John 3:30  

• Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. (17) For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (18) So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  ~II Corinthians 4:8-16-18

Stay faithful today, Friend.  We may suffer, but we do not suffer alone or without purpose.  

Christ suffered first, and as we seek to follow Him and serve Him, our layers will be peeled, but our relationship and intimacy with Him will be revealed.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (25) For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.  ~ Matthew 16:24-25

I watch for hawks all year during my drives, but when it's cold and stark and Winter is when they are inevitably easiest to spot.

If we are going-through-the-wringer of life today...stop and sense the Holy Spirit.  
In the refining there is a sweetness in our dependence on our Lord, who loves us deeply. 

Nothing can separate us from Him (Romans 8:38), and sometimes being able to fall-back on nothing-else but Him allows us to experience the unexplainable beauty of true vulnerability with Him.

Like the stark-contrast of a white hawk-chest shining out from an empty tree branch: When we are weak...then we are strong.

For when I am weak, then I am strong.  ~II Corinthians 12:10 

May our weaknesses today provide visibility to the Lord's boldness and beauty.

May any starkness in our life allow for (make-room-for) fresh intimacy between us and Jesus Christ.

Blessings,

sarah

https://sarahsundy04.blogspot.com