January 27

Read Psalm 41

Pray: Almighty God, help me to see the poor and needy around me. Help me to see poverty as more than the lack of stuff, but as the loss of community. Amen.

Hear:

I have seen true poverty in a myriad of places. One place was in Port-au-Prince, Haiti three months after the earthquakes of 2010. People lived in tents stacked on tents without clean water or sanitation.

Another place was around Bayshore in Tampa. Cavernous mansions lay relatively empty less than a mile away from one of the larger populations of people experiencing homelessness.

While one place had immense financial poverty and the other didn’t. Both had a severe poverty from human connection. In our passage, we see that the Lord is near those who suffer the worst sort of poverty—a disconnection from the world around us.

Respond:

How can you heal relational poverty in your community? Where are the poor and needy in your neighborhood?

Meditation:

We are made for community.