“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.”
Isaiah 61:3
If you’ve spent some time on earth for all that long, you’ve probably heard someone say, “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have!” Or maybe “Look good, feel good!” Maybe you’ve been told before for a given situation that you need to “Look the part.” Frankly, I agree with those sentiments. I have rarely done incredible work while wearing sweatpants and a chili-dog-stained t-shirt. (Unless you count binge-watching Ted Lasso as incredible work, which I might) But when I wear a suit and tie? I feel ready to make the greatest business deal of all time. Or when I put on a well-made pair of jeans and some boots, I’m ready to go outside and get some work taken care of. It feels right, it feels instinctive. Dressing for the job makes it feel more natural to perform the job.
And you may be asking yourself, what exactly does this have to do with Jesus? I’m getting to that. Because in Isaiah 61:3, it says that a garment of praise is an answer for a spirit of heaviness. And I don’t know about you, but in the world we live in, I’ve definitely felt a spirit of heaviness over the last few weeks. The shooting of Charlie Kirk, the senseless stabbing of an innocent girl, yet another school shooting, it seems like an endless list of one tragic expression of evil after another. It’s heavy, and it’s allowed to be heavy; there is no sense in calling it anything else. But what are we to do in the face of such heaviness? We dress for the job we want, not the job we have. We choose to praise, even when we feel no motivation to do so. Especially when we feel no motivation to do so.
"A garment of praise, for the spirit of heaviness." It is a Biblical promise that when we praise and worship, that is God's solution for a spirit of Heaviness. The thing is, we don’t have to FEEL weightless yet, we don’t have to have the worshipful feelings in order to worship, any more than we have to have the job before we dress the part. In fact, if you wait until you have the job to dress the part, you may never get it at all. Likewise, I believe we have to make the decision to praise, even in the midst of heaviness, of sorrow, of grief, of struggle, and when we praise in the face of those hardships, that act of praise IS what lifts the spirit of heaviness. Worship is a response to God’s character, His goodness, and His love. When we fix our eyes on those qualities, when we pour out gratitude at His feet, when we identify how much we have to be thankful for and praise Him for His kindness, our decision to clothe ourselves with His praise is a guarantee to lift the spirit of heaviness. And as for me, I could use all the help I can get in lifting the heaviness of this world. I’m going to do everything I can to dress for success. How about you?
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