The Gift of Joy
If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom by like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Isaiah 58:10-11
The reading of Isaiah continues from yesterday with promises of the joy and delight that we will experience as a result of helping others. We can tend to think of our relationships with God as something private, just between us and God, but Isaiah reminds us that God delights in our caring for others, so much so that our true joy depends on how our faith in God affects our whole life. God will be as generous with us as we are with one another.
Jesus, when you healed the paralytic man by first forgiving his sins, you remind us that with forgiveness comes healing: a healed heart, healed relationships, and healing through releasing guilt and burdens to you. Though it's incredibly difficult at times, and the opposite of what we think and what the world says, help us to remember that with the three little words "You are forgiven" we can take up our mat and be free. Thank you for your gift of grace. Amen
Resources: Led by Christ by Kathleen Finley and Follow the Way by Susan Senechal
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