Created for community
Day 332, Wednesday, July 9
Isaiah 44:24 – Chapter 45
There’s no question that humans have not always treated the planet well—and our day bears as much guilt for this as any other. But for those who say the earth would be better off without humanity, there is an answer in 45:18. “He who created the heavens, he is God; he who fahsioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it it be inhabited.”
We were meant to be here—God created the world to be inhabited.
That also means that we were created to be among other people. We aren’t built for isolation, but meant to share this planet with our brothers and sisters.
Think of how many of the problems of society start when we start thinking of others as enemies and competitors and become concerned only with ourselves or with our own small group of people.
P.S.
There’s a potentially confusing reference at the end of chapter 44 and the beginning of 45 to Cyrus, whom God refers to as “my shepherd.”
Yes, this is the Persian king.
Even in a part of the Bible that generally supports separation from surrounding nations, this man is singled out for praise for his efforts to allow the Jews to return to their homeland after the Babylonian exile.
Even here we have a reminder that God’s chosen people aren’t the only people who can serve God’s purpose.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Wednesday meditation

Job 4:1-11
Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied: “If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?
But who can keep from speaking?
Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hands.
Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees.
But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed.
Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?
“Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed?
As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.
At the breath of God they perish; at the blast of his anger they are no more.
The lions may roar and growl, yet the teeth of the great lions are broken.
The lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

Prayer focus
Let us be patient with those around us when we feel crowded in; they are our brothers and sisters, and were created to shared this blessed earth with us.