Nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
- from Isaiah 65:23
 
This phrase caught our attention this week. How tragic to see disaster coming and to not be able to avert it!
 
So many of our local social service agencies see this every day. They work with kids who’re headed down dangerous paths. They’re battling family violence and know that their best efforts won’t be enough to completely stamp out the brutality that lives behind closed doors. They know that for every person they serve, many more never get the help they need.
 
The scope of the challenges that face us when we roll up our sleeve to engage the world for good can paralyze us. Some Christians freeze and throw up their hands and their pious excuses. They hide behind nods to destiny or trite phrases about personal responsibility and do nothing.
 
Who cares about the “children doomed to misfortune”?
 
The Lord does. There’s a day coming when the destiny of every child will be positive, when hope won’t seem like a radical virtue, when cycles of poverty and violence will shatter and collapse and fall away. And God includes us in his good work to hasten this day.
 
Will you carve out some time today to pray for the children in our community who look like they’re “doomed to misfortune” – whether by poverty or violence or environment or family history or academic progress or disease? Roll up your sleeves in prayer and ask the Lord to change the destinies of these children and to give us opportunities to join him in his work in their lives.