They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.
-Isaiah 61:4
This is a VISION CASTING verse for me. I want to be about the work of rebuilding ancient ruins and restoring places long devastated for the rest of my life. At times, my faith has been a VERY personal journey, and in some ways, that feels appropriate for deep and lasting change to begin at a heart level, but as I have continued to grow and walk with God and study His word and listen to what Jesus was all about, my vision has broadened, and I see God’s call to be about not just about your own life changing, but about the work of a kingdom that’s coming.
I think at our core, all of us want to be swept up into a bigger story than just our own, and this verse gives me a beautiful picture of what that might look like. We get to repent, be made new, receive all the love and mercy that God offers us, and then let that love spill over every edge of our lives! We get to be the carriers of the most beautiful story I’ve ever known, the gospel. We get to be the people whose “feet are fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:15). We get to be peace-makers. We get to reconstruct ruins and be bridge builders who point to the ultimate bridge builder, Himself… Jesus. He is our bridge from hopelessness to hope, from lonely to beloved, from drowning to flying, from fear to freedom, from darkness to light, from death to life.
This verse is the cornerstone verse for my incredible Be the Bridge group. We’re reading through Latasha Morrison’s book Be the Bridge together and having hard, but necessary conversations as we seek to rebuild the ancient ruins of racism in our country, but do you know what my favorite thing about this group is? It’s that we’re all catching a bigger, broader, more beautiful, more colorful, more wonderful view of what the gospel is for and of what the gospel can transform! It starts in our own hearts, but it will reach to the ends of the earth, and we get to be those “oaks of righteousness” people, even though we are broken and imperfect.
Because of Jesus, we’re invited to be a part of rebuilding, a part of ushering in a kingdom that’s coming to earth as it is in heaven. SHOW ME WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE to rebuild ancient ruins, Lord. Help me learn to pick up a hammer and start bridge building in every area of my life, wherever and whenever it is possible. Thank you for this sweet invitation to be swept up into the most powerful story there is, the one of Your love for us.
