11 Dec 2009
Advent Devotional
Isaiah 61:1-9
This part of Isaiah speaks to helping those oppressed, broken-hearted people held captive. It goes on to suggest that strangers will help those in need, and that those in need will never be strangers. In not just this holiday season, but in every day, seek out those less fortunate and do something small, rather than simply not doing anything at all. Reach out to a person who knows grief, a person who feels physical pain, a person who needs food, or a person who is utterly alone. I think about C.S. Lewis and some of his words: “. . . The nourishing of life, and how it flourishes on death, and why, they utterly know; but not the hill-born, earthy spring, the dark cold bilberries. The ripe peach from the southern wall still hot full-bellied tankards foamy-topped, the delicate half-lyric lamb, a new loaf’s billowy curves, nor porridge, nor the tingling taste of oranges – An angel has no nerves.”
PRAYER: Dear Lord, I pray that I can be of assistance in some sublime way to someone, anyone who may feel foreign in a familiar place. Allow an angelic heart to be my nature. Amen.
Heather Johnson