Our son and daughter in law were over last night for dinner and a game of PIG in our foyer basket ball court. We had a nice visit with them, as we always do on Sunday evening. We spent some time talking about the city of Detroit and looking at some pictures of all the abandoned schools, churches, and homes in this city. It's like a ghost town now and the crime rate is number six in the nation. Thousands of people have just walked away from their homes and businesses leaving everything...
Now, the streets are left with homeless people, gangs, and many families feeling unsafe. There are no jobs to be had, it's a city that once thrived with wealth, but now it has sunk in despair.
Anything can happen. I've told myself this so many times. "Anything can happen, so be prepared. The other shoe could drop any day, and my town may be the next Detroit, anything could happen." Thus the wall around my heart. God has been diligently probing taking bricks down one by one. Anything could happen, true, which is why He wants me to trust IN HIM!
In church on Sunday the pastor had us turn to Isaiah 58, and I was so moved by this chapter because it really fits my life right now. Listen to this:
"If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down and out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places--firm muscles, strong bones. You'll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again."
He will give a full life in the emptiest of places and rebuild the foundations from out of the past, and make the community livable again.
This was encouraging to me, because I need Him to use me like a well watered garden. I need Him to take the rubble from my past and use it to build and restore old ruins, rebuild foundations, and make communities livable. I need all shadowed areas to be bathed in sunlight, all the time.
Anything could happen, He just said so, right here in His Word, and I'm banking on that. Say That Again Holy Father, my life will and does glow in the darkness, shadowed areas are bathed in Your sunlight! You take the Abandoned and make anything happen.
Now, the streets are left with homeless people, gangs, and many families feeling unsafe. There are no jobs to be had, it's a city that once thrived with wealth, but now it has sunk in despair.
Anything can happen. I've told myself this so many times. "Anything can happen, so be prepared. The other shoe could drop any day, and my town may be the next Detroit, anything could happen." Thus the wall around my heart. God has been diligently probing taking bricks down one by one. Anything could happen, true, which is why He wants me to trust IN HIM!
In church on Sunday the pastor had us turn to Isaiah 58, and I was so moved by this chapter because it really fits my life right now. Listen to this:
"If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down and out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places--firm muscles, strong bones. You'll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again."
He will give a full life in the emptiest of places and rebuild the foundations from out of the past, and make the community livable again.
This was encouraging to me, because I need Him to use me like a well watered garden. I need Him to take the rubble from my past and use it to build and restore old ruins, rebuild foundations, and make communities livable. I need all shadowed areas to be bathed in sunlight, all the time.
Anything could happen, He just said so, right here in His Word, and I'm banking on that. Say That Again Holy Father, my life will and does glow in the darkness, shadowed areas are bathed in Your sunlight! You take the Abandoned and make anything happen.
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