It makes people uncomfortable to talk about their needs and desires. Isaiah 58 invites us to consider another reality. What if God wants us to be clear about our needs so that we can live lives of wholeness and be available to meet others’ needs?
Isaiah 58 is all about the importance of needs being met– God’s needs, our neighbor’s needs, our needs. However, unlike cultural norms that would talk about needs being met in material ways, the needs in the text are met in ways that deal in the realm of emotion and connectedness. I can’t meet someone’s need if I don’t know it. I don’t know it if I don’t know them. I become aware of another’s needs when I enter into relationship with them.
The same is true with us. God seeks to be in relationship with us, to know our heart and fill our lives so that every need, every desire that seeks life-giving connection and the care of another, is met.
This message is excerpted from “Lives of Wholeness” by Rozella Haydee White in the June 2018 Cafe online magazine.
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