A POEM

Blasted acres,
Broken, unshaded, unkept, forgotten.
No water, hardly any air.
Stifling. Enervating. Suffocating.
Wasted places.
Unfruitful.
Parched.
But not past redemption.

The earth is the LORD’s!
Although the caretakers have turned away from
…this waste.

“O God of wind and rain, seed and sowing.”
I weep across the vista. So many mouths to feed.
So much wasted land.
“O God of covenant,
Who can,
Who wants to,
Who will.
What is Your word to this visible,
Tangible, unholy waste?”

“For the LORD will comfort Zion,
He will comfort all her waste places;
He will make her wilderness like Eden,
And her desert like the garden of the LORD;
Joy and gladness will be found in it,
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody.”
~ Isaiah 51:3

The waste places of our lives are not past redemption. God is the master of our crumbling earth. And He is a fully-committed miracle worker. “…like Eden,…like the garden of the LORD.” How can that be? It can be because God is the God of redemption. Waste places are a reality, but they are not a particularly hard challenge to the Almighty God. Bring the waste places of your life and heart to Him. Trust Him to turn things around in your life. Not to suit you. But to suit Him. That is what Jesus did for each of us when He died on the cross and rose again the third day: He turned death into victory. It doesn’t seem possible, but it’s true! Trust the waste places of your life to His redemption and “joy and gladness will be found in it”!