Session 4 • Simplicity & generosity • Devotional
Spend some time reading and meditating on these verses from Isaiah 58. Here, the prophet is rebuking the people for fasting according to the letter of the law but not living lives of love, mercy and justice. Allow yourself to be still and to sit under the loving gaze of God. Ask God to speak to you about the ways that he wants to lead you to a place of inward simplicity of heart, so that this inward posture can become reflected in an outward expression of generosity towards others. Spend some time in prayer or journaling about what comes to mind for you as you meditate on these verses. You may even want to do Lectio Divina with this passage.
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.