Slum Songs

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Today's reading, titled Slum Songs, was written by Sheridan Voisey. Catuora is a small slum in Paraguay, South America.

Desperately poor, its villagers survive by recycling items from its rubbish dump. But from these unpromising conditions, something beautiful has emerged—an orchestra. With a violin costing more than a house in Catuora, the orchestra had to get creative, crafting its own instruments from their garbage supply. Violins are made from oil cans with bent forks as tailpieces. Saxophones have come from drainpipes with bottle tops for keys. Cellos are made from tin drums with gnocchi rollers for tuning pegs. Hearing Mozart played on these contraptions is a beautiful thing.

The orchestra has gone on tour in many countries, lifting the sights of its young members. Violins from landfills? Music from slums? That's symbolic of what God does. For when the prophet Isaiah envisions God's new creation, a similar picture of beauty from poverty emerges, with barren lands bursting into blooming flowers, deserts flowing with streams, castaway war tools crafted into garden instruments, and impoverished people becoming whole to the sounds of joyful songs.

The world sends us garbage, Catuora's orchestra director says. We send back music. And as they do, they give the world a glimpse of the future, when God will wipe away the tears of every eye, and poverty will be no more. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is Isaiah chapter 35. The desert and the parched land will be glad. The wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom. It will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it.

The splendor of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the Lord. The splendor of our God. Strengthen the feeble hands.

Steady the knees that give way. Say to those with fearful hearts, be strong, do not fear. Your God will come. He will come with vengeance, with divine retribution. He will come to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool.

The thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where the jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. And a highway will be there. It will be called the way of holiness. It will be for those who walk on that way. The unclean will not journey on it. Wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast.

They will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing. Everlasting joy will crown their heads.

Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. Let's pray. Dear Jesus, thank you for making something new out of our broken lives. We pray that you would help us to live for you every day, and that our lives would reflect your grace and mercy, and that others would come to know you through us. Thank you, Lord. It's in your name that we pray. Amen. Today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.