Isaiah 61

I am starving for change.

I live in dryness, and feel empty. I forget my God but love Him too. I know His goodness, yet I cling to doubt, selfishness. Despair is the worst of it, feeling stuck.

I am working, and living, and cooking, and preparing, and talking to my family, and helping out at church. But I feel dry, and empty.

I long to be used, to be useful, and working out the purpose for which God put me on earth. I long to bind the brokenhearted, release the captives, care for the sick and lonely. Clothe, give shelter, ask, seek, knock, find, receive, know God. I long to do.

Yet are there not people right around me—my family even—who are brokenhearted?

Are there not coworkers and strangers with broken hearts and empty souls?

I long to feed them, clothe them. If only I would open my eyes and consider them broken who have all, who do not long for material things or for food that spoils, but rather hunger and thirst for a righteousness they feel in their souls must happen but don’t see in the world and so they live in a darkness that seems like that’s all there is.

God, open my eyes to see these people. You have given me my lot, my place, my today’s purpose.