Rough places smooth

“I will go before you and make the rough places smooth: I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron.”  Isaiah 45:2

The streets are a rough place to live.  You see how people wear poverty and violence like jagged rings in earlobes.  It’s wonderful to still see the innocence, and purity of children who live in the midst of it all, but soon that innocence will disappear beneath the harsh realities of street life. 

Yesterday, I went out into the streets to talk to people; characters that I would normally pass on by and maybe even walk more quickly when seeing them, but yesterday I stopped, I smiled, I talked, I listened, I invited, I made connections.

There is so much violence on the streets, because people are desperate.  People are hungry.  And this is what Jesus asks of us.

Feed the hungry, and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. Isaiah 58:10