The Wasteland

The LORD says to his people, ‘When the time comes to save you, I will show you favour and answer your cries for help. I will guard and protect you and through you make a covenant with all peoples. I will let you settle once again in your land that is now laid waste.’ (verse 8)

Read Isaiah 49:7-13

The children of Israel experienced living in the desert during the exodus from Egypt. And they experienced their land being laid waste during their exile into Babylon.

Many children of the world today also experience living in wastelands. In the documentary film Waste Land, an artist, Vik Muniz, travels to the world’s largest landfill outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Muniz works with a group of catadores, or pickers of recyclable materials, and together they transform the garbage into contemporary art. The artworks are sold to the most prestigious auction houses in London, and the money goes back to improving life for the people of the Wasteland community.

All of us have times of barrenness in our lives. What are the wastelands for you at the moment? What beauty is God waiting to create out of your rubbish? You can have faith in a God who produces beauty out of garbage, works of art out of wastelands, saints out of sinners.

Creative God, you can transform the wastelands of our lives into beauty. Give me trust and hope in your transformative power, as I wait for this to happen in my life. Amen.

Devotion by Tim Jarick from “Time Out … with Jesus” (Australian Church Resources, 2014)

Visit the Daily Devotion archives page.