Dust for Ashes
You might have heard about the One Red Paperclip Challenge from the early 2000’s. It came back via TikTok in the 2020’s (at least on my fyp). The challenge from a Canadian blogger named Kyle MacDonald was to trade his single red paperclip until he got a house. It seems off the wall and impossible. But MacDonald did it.
His first trade was for a wooden fish pen which ended up several trades later into a vintage neon sign. It quite literally snowballed from there to a snowmobile. After 14 trades he ended up with a house (complete with a red paperclip sculpture out front).
It would seem that a red paperclip is a strange trade. I’ll tell you, I hate the way the colored paperclips are so thick! I don’t think I would have traded him for that paperclip myself. But someone did, making that trade to me even stranger.
God likes to make trades - exchanges, if you will - too. He doesn’t start with a red paperclip, but he will exchange any little thing to extremely enormous things preventing you from experiencing Him fully. One of the things God exchanges is dust, but in the form of ashes.
If you are saying, “Hey, ashes and dust aren’t the same,” then let the Oxford dictionary prove that otherwise:
dust - fine, dry powder consisting of tiny particles of earth or waste matter lying on the ground or on surfaces or carried in the air.
ash - the powdery residue left after the burning of a substance.
And so I believe this isn’t too much of a stretch to say ashes are dust (like all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares).
With that context in mind, let’s revisit our good friend Isaiah:
To all who mourn in Israel
he will give a crown of beauty for ashes,
a joyous blessing instead of mourning,
festive praise instead of despair.
In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks
that the Lord has planted for his own glory.
– Isaiah 61:3
We see a lot of exchanges with God in this passage - not with a red paperclip but with issues that we all experience.
1 - God trades ashes for crown of beauty.
Let’s dig into the Jewish culture again together. The word “ashes” in Hebrew is efer. Efer is an expression of mourning in the Jewish culture in which ashes are cast on the head of the mourner. We see this in a few Scriptures:
And Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the long robe that she wore. And she laid her hand on her head and went away, crying aloud as she went.
– II Samuel 13:19
Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the Lord, remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads.
– Joshua 7:6
Ashes, as we know, are the powdery waste from a fire. If you’ve picked up ashes (or participate in receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday) you know ashes stain. They stain your skin and your clothes. When mourners have ashes poured over them, they are staining themselves with grief.
God exchanges the ashes for a crown of beauty. When He does this, He first takes away the waste portion of the ashes. He takes the pain and sorrow that comes with losing a loved one. He, then, washes away the stains.
We hear this reference throughout Scriptures, especially in the New Testament:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
– 1 John 1:9
When God exchanges the ashes for beauty - He doesn’t just take away the ashes but purifies you into beauty.
2 - God trades mourning for joyous blessing.
The next trade God makes isn’t a wooden fish pen, but for joyous blessing. We’ve all experienced mourning at some point and in some way. Grief isn’t just death of a loved one, but could be the pruning of a relationship/friendship, changing jobs (or churches or doctors or counselors), or a change of a life season (graduations, marriages, moving, etc.).
(Not only does grief suck but anticipatory grief sucks too. We often neglect this piece or don’t acknowledge it as “real.” And if this is what you are experiencing, this is for you too!)
When I think about the mourning I have felt in the last year (from marriage and its associated changes to cancer…you name it), this exchange feels hard.
God doesn’t just promise to give His blessing but He calls it a joyous one. He looks into the tear filled eyes and says “Give it to me so I can fill you with joy,” in a moment that feels anything but joy. It’s kind of like MacDonald’s trade from a vintage neon sign to a snowmobile. It seems like an unlikely and unequal trade.
This one probably provokes the most questions, but hang on through the next one.
3 - God trades despair for festive praise.
Let me share what despair is from Merriam-Webster:
despair - utter loss of hope
utter - absolute, total
Total loss of hope.
Another trade that makes no sense. It takes the question of “how does one red paperclip become a house?” and magnifies it. How does total loss of hope become festive praise?
I’ve worked at several music festivals. I’ve seen festive praise working front stage security. I’ve seen the way people’s faces light up with their hands raised high (especially when bands jump into the crowd). How does absolute, total loss of hope become that?
The only answer is God.
All of these leads to “why”? Why does God want to trade the dust? Isaiah tells us. Read that last line from Isaiah 61:3 again: “In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for His own glory.”
It isn’t because God wants the dust, mourning, and despair. It’s because He wants the better things for us. Isaiah uses this imagery of great oaks. Oak trees can live up to 300 years old and grow up to 100 feet tall. What this imagery tells us is God wants to trade with us, so He can anoint us to be planted for His glory. The oak trees that are anointed are rooted, fruitful, and experience growth in Him.
MacDonald traded a single red paperclip for a house, but our God trades ashes for great oaks.
