Often when I listen to the news I think how sad. Blacks v Whites both looking for an edge to gain over others. Lawmakers writing laws that favor the 'haves over the have nots'. Minimum wage is not a livable wage. Then in news from other lands I see those with power oppressing those without power. Clamoring to get ahead of others seems a universal human activity and putting others down along the way is just what one does.
With these thoughts as my background I read, Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches? Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised (1-4).
God desires a different approach. Help those who are deprived. Watch out for people who have no personal clout in the world.
It is all too easy for me to begin pointing fingers at politicians and others as I read these verses forgetting or minimizing what these words say to me! I play this game too frequently, noting others' failures rather than my own. Recognizing my fault, I lay Isaiah words upon my life... Do I dis the poor? Do I vote for people who will care for me at the exclusion of widows, orphans and the fatherless? Do I revel in my advantages while having a stone heart toward those not as fortunate? Would I legislate differently were I in a seat of power and influence?
Lord, these questions penetrate. Thank You for not allowing me to get off easily. Probe me and know me, correct any wicked way in me. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
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