To Ride the Heights of the Earth

If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday.


He will renew your strength,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose water never fails.
The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,
and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up.


If you hold back your foot on the sabbath
from following your own pursuits on my holy day;
If you honor it by not following your ways,
seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice—
Then you shall delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth.

Isaiah 58: 9b-14

Over and over, I find it's my strong will that keeps me from My Own Private Jerusalem. Yet I have survived by my will and my determination to walk through the dark; I have lived through a broken marriage, a nasty divorce, single parenthood and two critically ill parents who leaned on me as their sole caregiver. If I didn't have a strong will, I surely would not stand today and I would not have the family that I do. And the memories I have. My will is one of my greatest blessings. But yet it's this strength of will that allows me to persist in stubborn, unhealthy, selfish pursuits that do not allow me to be the person I want to be. God help me this week to hold back my foot and to yearn ever more deeply to ride the heights of the earth...for at least a glimpse of My Jerusalem....



JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA