Day 160 - Essence - Essential
📖Daily Reading
Isaiah 50-51
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Isaiah 50: 10-11
Who among you fears the Lord and obeys his servant? If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light trust in the Lord and rely on your God. But watch out you who live in your own light and warm yourselves by your own fires. This is the reward you will receive from me: You will soon fall down in great torment.
Isaiah 51: 1-2
“Listen to me, all who hope for deliverance- all who seek the Lord! Consider the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were mined. Yes, think about the Abraham, your ancestor, and Sarah, who gave birth to your nation. Abraham was only one man when I called him. But when I blessed him, he became a great nation.”
🪨💎 The same rock from which a diamond is cut, can stay just a rock, even though it’s essence and and the potential within the rock is a diamond. A rock or lump of coal does not need to be a diamond, but a diamond needed to start off as a lump of rock. I think this is a good way to think of us as humans. We all have the potential to become diamonds. We all have that essence, the essential ingredients. God created us in his image.
Lets ‘flesh’ this out a bit. In Isaiah the coming of God’s servant, Jesus, is foretold. Jesus of course is the shining example of a human that achieved a ‘diamond’ status that is beyond measure. Even He, did not create and live in his own light and warm himself by his own fire. He was very clear about who He was and his role here on earth because of whose he was. He role modeled what it would be like to allow our essence to be plugged into The essence from which it came and then have the courage to allow it to shine.
The process of a rock/carbon becoming a diamond is violent. It requires heat, intense pressure, mining, cutting, polishing. Here we hear Jesus speaking before his ‘human’ existence.
In Isaiah 50: 4-6
The Sovereign Lord has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary, Morning by morning he wakes me and opens my understanding to his will. The Sovereign Lord has spoken to me, and I have listened. I have not rebelled or turned away. I offered my back to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who pulled out by beard. I did not hide my face from mockery and spitting.
He goes on in Vs. 7 to say - Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like a stone, determined to do his will. And I know that I will not be put to shame.
Allowing our essence to be honed is going to feel very violent and threatening. We don’t like to be rejected, ostracized, made fun of, feel weird or other than. We want to belong and be part of the ‘pack’. I love that the words used here bring us back to the ‘rock’, he set his face like a stone, determined. Interestingly, diamonds are stronger than the stone they were cut from and they can then be turned into some of the most powerful cutting tools. The process of going from a lump of carbon to a diamond is pretty awful - but the result is awesome.
Diamonds are also know for their brilliance, dazzle and sparkle. This is because they reflect light so well, they don’t create their own light. This is how humans are meant to express and reflect God, we are made in his image to reflect him not to be him. It is our essence, but yet to become the ‘diamonds’ that we can be, we have to choose to enter into the refining process. Some of us enter into it, but only allow ourselves to be ‘raw diamonds’, maybe ‘rough cut’ etc.. We are willing to say we believe and call our selves believers, but only in like minded communities where it is safe. Some of us go out with enough belief but still so much ego attached and in the MVP position that we aren’t light reflecting God’s light, we are wagging our fingers and trying to be our own light, and we keep people from the true light - we repel others if we are not careful.
God’s truth and light is incorruptible because of its essential nature. We humans not so much. We can choose to live as happy little lumps of rock, there is no requirement to become a diamond. You can live as a diamond in the rough, etc.. But if you really want to be a light, and a life that reflects God’s brilliance you must be willing to go through the refining process. But like Jesus, you are not alone, you can not be disgraced or put to shame, when you understand the true nature and the essence of what is inside of you. 🪨💎 You have strength, brilliance and value beyond measure within because of whose you are, the rock from which you are cut.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Do you recognize your own divine essence? Where are you in the refining process?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Isaiah 52-55
Coaching Opportunity
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If you have stuck with me this far, then you are not reading this by accident, I believe God has a plan for you and is calling you forward!😉🤩
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