Fri.'s Devo - Blooming in the Desert

Read Isa 35:1-10
This whole chapter gives us another glimpse into the millennial reign.  The dry dead desert will rejoice and plants will blossom all over it.  The desert is going to actually sing with joy.  What a picture!  To all who are weak and afraid now...don't be because the best is yet to come.  God gives us this picture so that our hope will be renewed during hard times.  The millennial reign is the great Sabbath where the people will rest.  When Jesus healed on the Sabbath day he healed everyone as a type of the millennial sabbath.  The land will be healed and bring forth vegetation and abundance of water.  There will only be one way to walk and that is in righteousness.  There will be no temptation to make us get off the path.  We will walk on God's highway singing the songs of the redeemed.  Every heart will be healed and everyone will rejoice with joy!
When I was a little girl, my family took me to California and on the way we stopped in Arizona at my aunt's house.  They lived in the desert and had a garden in their backyard.  I had never seen plants like that before; they were so bright and beautiful.  The sun makes flowers bloom, so I guess in the desert the flowers are so bright because they are closer to the sun.  That has to be true because the closer we get to God (the sun) the brighter we shine.  I can only imagine what these flowers during the millennial reign will look like. 
Lord, thank you for giving us glimpses into the future to broaden our view of our lives and give us hope.  Today is my Birthday and I pray that I would bloom in the deserts you put me in today.