Processing with Isaiah

I wanted to share some thoughts with you- a page torn out of my journal if you will. While in Sierra Leone, I felt like a sponge soaking up all of these experiences and images but unable to do anything else with them. Since returning, the LORD laid it on my heart to begin reading Isaiah, a book I read several years ago but failed to really connect with. This time, however, reading it has been an opening of my thoughts to really begin to process and wrestle with how to take my life in America and my experiences in Africa and contemplate hope, injustice, and how I should live accordingly.

You might disagree, but for me, the parallels between American and Sierra Leonean needs has been very striking. Though the problems might be different on the surface level and though we may fail to understand how the other nation can struggle with such things, our needs and sins are fundamentally the same. Here are some slightly paraphrased thoughts that I wrote after reading Isaiah 1 my second morning back...

Reading Isaiah 1, I continue to see the parallels between SL and the US. The physical desolation described is a timeline for the past 15 years of SL but the spiritual desolation described is rampant in America.

For Sierra Leone:
"From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil. Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land..."(vs. 6-7)

For the United States:
"Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Isreal, they are utterly estranged. Bring no more vain offerings... I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly, they have become a burden to Me. I am weary of bearing them..." (vs. 4, 13-14)

These things, reading them, is so overwhelming to me. How do I help with the burdens of Sierra Leone, the sin of the US so that you Lord do not hide your face from us? I have no answers, and I cannot save the America, Africa, or even myself. And then you bring hope:

"Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of Your deeds from before my eyes.
Cease do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widows cause. Come now, let us reason together says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient You shall eat the good of the land..." (vs. 16 -19)

Lord, you are our hope. In Your salvation whether "pumwei" or black You offer new life- fullness in your redemption. Fullness of spiritual and physical significance. This is what joins us as brother and sister across the Atlantic. We are in the same boat (or sinful world), and we need Christ and we long for your kingdom. We long for when...

"Zion shall be redeemed by justice and those in her who repent by righteousness." (vs. 27)

Those two things spring from the LORD- justice and righteousness. This is what I am called to seek. May I have the wisdom and a heart that will seek those things.