Isaiah 58

This week at small group, I led the group through a discussion of Isaiah 58. I knew about 4 weeks ago that I was doing this, so I read through the passage almost every day, slowly gathered information and read commentatary and tried to answer my own questions. It's a strange sensation, but I carried this passage around with me in a very heavy place while I thought about how to present it to my friends. It continues to convict me, particularly verse 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.

The best I understand it, this is a promise to those who practice "true fasting" or "true religion", which is, as verse 7 states: 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?

As I spend much of my life struggling for meaning and wondering what my life's calling is, does Isaiah answer me from sometime around the 6th century BCE? Am I lying in sackcloth and ashes, beating my breast while God has laid it out for me how to live my life?

Often, the Bible is confusing or worse. Sometimes it is not. Stupid Isaiah!

Career Implosion

Well, I usually don't blog about work, for good reason. But I've been working on a really big project for 5 years on-and-off and it was finally coming to fruition. We had bought a new piece of equipment and started on the commissioning. Things were going well until late Friday afternoon, when the this equipment collapsed under the vacuum we pulled on it. I wish I could post pictures, it's pretty impressive. It was our supplier's fault, and they took full responsibility, but it is still a big setback!
That sucking sound is my project going down the tubes.