Tuesday evening — Read Isaiah 58:12

¹² And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.

If you have kept up with the fast to this point perhaps you feel more like a swamp than a “well watered garden.” Verse 12 teaches us that the result of being sustained and built up by the Lord is so that we might be “repairers of the breach” bringing restoration in the streets of our community. The statistics that we hear only confirm the reality of our world—it is fallen, broken, and in need of repair (a fatherless generation, abuse, broken marriages inside and outside the church, corruption in governments, corruption in the workplace, greed, etc.).

Nonetheless, our world has been redeemed by the mighty hand of our Savior. So while we live in a fallen world, we also live in a redeemed world and our business as followers of Jesus is seeking beauty in the world, seeking renewal of our harassed families, and seeking renewal for the helpless and harassed in Katy.

Katy truly is an amazing place to live! My kids ride their bikes in our neighborhood and it is much safer then where we lived in St. Louis. I often ride my bike to work and in most areas of Katy everything looks perfect. Perfectly manicured lawns, strategically placed sidewalks, the strip malls are even pretty, some fitness center lobbies in Katy put some hotel lobbies to shame, the people are pretty; yet underneath all the pretty there is hidden brokenness and helplessness. Questions for tonight are as follows: How can we as a church be vulnerable and bring hidden ruins to light? How can we build foundations for future generations? How can we repair the breach and restore the streets? By running and hiding? By building bigger walls? Or by engaging the streets to restore them? See if you can do this with your families – this evening while we continue relying upon the Lord, lets simply pray…

That the Lord would open our eyes to see the harassed and helpless condition of others around us and that he would use us to raise up laborers to repair the breach and bring restoration to our community.