Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

• Isaiah 58:6-12

If only you had paid attention to my commands,
    your peace would have been like a river,
    your well-being like the waves of the sea.

• Isaiah 48:18

How beautiful on the mountains
    are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
    who bring good tidings,
    who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
    “Your God reigns!”
Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices;
    together they shout for joy.
When the Lord returns to Zion,
    they will see it with their own eyes.
Burst into songs of joy together,
    you ruins of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people,
    he has redeemed Jerusalem.

• Isaiah 52:7-9

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.

• Romans 14:17-18

The Boilerplate

My wife took a Bible Study in 2011.  (There was a note in the study guide that identified September 2 and that the study was being held on Friday mornings, or I might not have ever figured out what year.)  My wife had become a Christian in 2000. She greatly respected the pastor’s wife who was also a pastor.  The pastor’s wife spent time as the interim associate pastor, and this Bible study might have been during that time.

My wife passed away in March 2023, and I found this study guide as I was cleaning up.  It is a Beth Moore study guide.  Most of the questions are close-ended, mostly fill-in-the-blank.  But my wife was eager to learn.  She wrote her thoughts in the margins, sometimes encouraged to do so by Beth Moore.  I will use her comments as I did once before, calling this a “with a little help” series in that my wife contributes.  There is more to follow in that she wrote Scriptures and prayers in a notebook.  Probably what she found in her personal Bible study, giving her encouragement through the long illness that took her life.

So, instead of writing about a topic at random, I am going to write on my wife’s comments in the Study Guide.  It may follow the study guide topics, but it may not.

Discussion on this topic

What is at the heart of Isaiah 58:6-12?

“Prosperity (freedom)”

• My wife’s response

She had been instructed to give a single sentence and she wrote two words, but most of the rest of this lesson is well answered, just not a lot of questions.

And in verses 10 and 11, how do you connect the themes of self-denial and satisfaction?

“By self-denial you are glorifying God in all things (the good of humanity).  God in turn will shower you.”

• My wife’s response

In the light of these verses, I agree.  You are helping the needy rather than saving for a rainy day.  And to carry that mental image further, what God gives us is indeed a rainy day to make the crops turn green and give a bountiful harvest.  So, my wife using the word “shower” was tongue in cheek, so to speak.  Instead of a shower of blessings, we will get a shower that is a blessing.

My wife ignored the question about fasting, but she thought of what the focus should be.

“Bibles to the Spiritually starved or ones who can’t get one.  Hurricane relief.”

• My wife’s response

She mentioned Katrina specifically, and this was six years after the hurricane, but it was Hurricane Katrina where we went to help people rebuild.  This year, a couple of hurricanes have done a lot of damage in the USA.

What was a time when you emptied yourself out for others?

“As a teenager, I always complained about what I didn’t have until I worked the summer months in the Campizal (between Texas and Mexico) and I truly saw how rich I really was.”

• My wife’s response

First, Campizal is literally translated as a small field.  My wife grew up in El Paso, Texas, coming to the USA about the age of six or nearly seven by the time her family reached El Paso.  Juarez, Mexico is just south of El Paso, but the suburb where she lived was to the east of there.  A border crossing was easy walking distance from their house.  South of the border crossing was a field where the poor would gather, walk across into the USA to find work for the day, and then walk back to feed their families that night.

When I took her back to her old hometown area, she pointed to the border crossing and said that was where the Campizal was located, and how wretchedly poor those people were.

But to bring this into context with what she wrote, her father was an accountant for a milk company.  He was paid on the low end of the scale for accountants, and he had nine children.  They would have been fine with two or three children.  Her father told the older children to not eat too much because the younger children needed the nourishment; my wife was the only one who listened, often going to bed hungry.  She was told that Christmas was for the younger children.  She never had a Barbie Doll, and oddly, her friends were jealous of her paper dolls (the Lennon Sisters) because my wife had designed her own clothes to have the dolls wear.  Barbie accessories were expensive, even for the rich children she had as friends.

So by comparison to her friends, none of them had ever gone to bed hungry, but in comparison to the families in the Campizal, she was rich beyond imagination.  But if people do not experience other cultures, or subcultures that may not be far from your home, they can either lord it over others or whine that they do not have this or that.

How can God’s peace within you become eye-catching?

“When people see you and want to know what ‘it’ is that you have, they want ‘it.’ ”

• My wife’s response

My wife had “it” by the bucket full.  After she passed, the comment that I got from a multitude of people was that they knew she was in horrible pain, but the smile never left her face.  Why?  She had “it.”

What does Isaiah 52:7-9 say about the relationship between peace and joy?

“You will sing into songs of Joy because God has comforted you.”

• My wife’s response

What does Romans 14:17-18 say about God’s kingdom?

“It isn’t eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

• My wife’s response

There is only one more lesson in this series.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory