Joni and Friends Daily Devotional 11 November 2021 | Thursday Message
Topic: We Will Shine
Scripture: Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.” – Daniel 12:3
Message: The other night before I went into the house, I stopped to listen to my neighbor’s whistling pines and enjoy the thin slice of moon making a smile on the horizon. The night was a starry dome that took my breath away, and before the cold drove me indoors, my heart broke with joy and I whispered to the sky, “Jesus, wait for me, I’m coming home, I belong up there.” Stars do that to me.
Symbols of crowns and thrones, crystal seas and stars are found on virtually every page of Scripture. And to some, such symbolism can be off-putting. Just look at today’s verse. We will shine like stars? As C.S. Lewis has said, “Who wishes to become a living electric light bulb?”
But wait. Have you ever stood in the night wind and looked up at a blanket of stars? The blazing brightness of the heavens so captures you that words can hardly express the ache in your heart.
Here’s the thing. The glory of the stars that captivates you will one day be yours. The ecstasy that enraptures your heart at the sight of a night ablaze with twinkling lights… you will one day enter into that same ecstasy. One day you will put on glory like that. It will be yours for ever and ever.
For more reading on this delightful subject, pick up C.S. Lewis’s The Weight of Glory. When it comes to wrapping reality around heavenly symbols, nobody says it quite as he does.
Pray: Lord, the next time beauty captures my heart and makes me breathless, help me to remember that such glory is my destiny in heaven. Oh, that one day I shall shine like the stars for ever and ever!
Joni and Friends Daily Devotional 11 November 2021 is taken from Diamonds in the Dust – By Joni Eareckson Tada
