I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them. Isaiah 42:16.

This from You Are The Beloved by Henri Nouwen: “Not Me but God…Compassion lies at the heart of our prayer for our fellow human beings. When I pray for the world, I become the world; when I pray for the endless needs of the millions, my soul expands and wants to embrace them all and bring them into the presence of God. But in the midst of that experience I realize that compassion is not mine but God’s gift to me. I cannot embrace the world, but God can. I cannot pray, but God can pray in me. When God became as we are, that is, when God allowed all of us to enter into His intimate life, it became possible for us to share in His infinite compassion. In praying for others, I lose myself and become the other, only to be found by the divine love that holds the whole of humanity in a compassionate embrace.”

We can do that! We can enter into His intimate life lived with us! And in our chapter, Malachi 1, we enter into the last book of the Old Testament. Malachi stands alone; he along with Haggai and Zechariah were the postexilic prophets to Judah, but almost a century has passed when Malachi becomes a prophet. And Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit, speaks through Malachi because it was needed and He doesn’t leave us without instruction. Try to imagine. The people have been allowed back, the temple has been rebuilt, Jerusalem has been rebuilt. Time has passed and in the passing of years something essential is missing. We just celebrated Fathers Day. Can we see who our, humanity’s, Father, is? Can we celebrate Him? Can we give thanks for the blessings and provisions He gives every day? That is what Malachi speaks then and Creator God speaks now. A prophecy: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. “But you ask, ‘How have You loved us?’ Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.” Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.” But this is what the Lord Almighty says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord. You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord – even beyond the borders of Israel!’ A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a Father, where is the honor due Me? If I am a Master, where is the respect due Me?” says the Lord Almighty. “It is you priests who show contempt for My name. But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for Your name?’ By offering defiled food on My altar. But you ask, ‘How have we defiled You?’ By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty. “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on My altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands. My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to Me, because My name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’ And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty. v. 1-13.

We keep trying to rebuild what is so blind because we do not love our Father. 100 years may seem long to us, but is a blink of an eye to Creator God. And He has seen it all in every variation we bring. And fortunately for us, He is faithful and true. He knows what we are and we are loved by Him. That is divine compassion. That is our hope. His good that will be done in every heart in His timing. We are so contemptuous of others and in that we are contemptuous of Creator God. He asks us to love Him and to love one another and that is not a burden when we love with His help. And it takes His good Love to do that as evidenced by all of the history of mankind. Centuries more would pass before Jesus, the Son, would come into our world as one of us, living life as we live here in this broken world. And He came to show us the Father’s love so we could begin to know Creator God. You can begin to know Creator God. You can begin to experience His help and His inspiration to love and trust Him. It begins in the heart where it must. I pray that God’s own love will bring light into a fissure of every heart and expand and grow in beautiful trust as He leads us. It is His love that brings healing and understanding so that we can rejoice with great joy and love for Him, our Father, Savior, Helper. And in loving Him, we can begin to love one another. Even in the blindness of this world, we can see Him working always for our Good. Do you need to forgive? He will help you. Do you need forgiveness? He already has.