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Tag: Lamentations 1

  • Lamentations 1:20 – Look at Me

    Lamentations 1:20 – Look at Me

    20 ‘LORD, see how sorely distressed I am.
    My bowels writhe in anguish
    and my heart within me turns over,
    because I wantonly rebelled.
    In the street the sword brings bereavement,
    like the plague within the house.

    The Revised English Bible (Cambridge; New York; Melbourne; Madrid; Cape Town; Singapore; São Paulo; Delhi; Dubai; Tokyo: Cambridge University Press, 1996), La 1:20.

    I find it hard to blame the author of Lamentations, because he is speaking for Judah as they stand devasted by God’s actions. “Lord,” they ask, “Do you really know how terrible this all is?”

    Their situation is real, and their question is justified. In fact, I suspect this book is in the Bible precisely because that is such an excellent question.

    But I’ve told you that I do these verse by verse meditations not to do biblical exegesis, as interesting as that is, but to meditate on the words and see what may come to mind. In this case, I started asking the question: “What if this question is either not justified or not well motivated?

    Let’s look first at “not justified.” I don’t know about you, but I can work myself into a serious problem by not paying attention or by compounding one error with another as I try to fix things. As decisions pile up and then cascade into a landslide of consequences, I have the urge to ask, “Lord, why are you letting this happen to me?”

    There’s a simple answer. “Whatever a man sows, that will he reap.” God made the universe in such a way that actions have consequences. When consequences come, it’s possible you may not realize what caused them. It’s a good time to ask, “Lord, do you see what’s happening? Why?” But be ready for an unpleasant answer to that “why” question.

    On the other hand, you may be able to see the path clearly. In that case, the why isn’t the right question. You know why. If you were running wildly along the edge of a cliff and suddenly find yourself in a heap at the bottom, the why is obvious. It’s just not very helpful. “How do I get out?” is a much more helpful question.

    After that, you can remember the obvious “why” and don’t do that again!

    But the question can sometimes come with bad motivation. It’s possible to become so caught up in troubles that trouble becomes your identity. You may not feel precisely proud of it, but it’s you. If you didn’t have your troubles, who would you be? Being a victim becomes a way of life.

    Among Christians, there’s a particularly dangerous form of this in which people find affirmation of the “rightness” based on people attacking them or “persecuting” them. Want to feel sure you’re right? Just wait until someone attacks you for your beliefs. “Blessed are the persecuted!” (Matthew 5:10).

    But offending someone or making them angry enough to take action against you is not necessarily an indication that you are right. People do get annoyed at others doing right when they know they are not. This can result in persecution in school, at work, or in life. But as soon as you take that as the indication that you’re right, you’re on a dangerous path. The persecution doesn’t indicate you’re right.

    You’re blessed if you’re doing right and “doing right the right way” and are persecuted for it. You aren’t blessed if you’re being offensive in order to feel important or find affirmation.

    So when things go wrong, ask yourself why first. Often, you’ll find that you know the answer, and the problem is you. Good news: You can do something about that!

  • Lamentations 1:19 – Connections

    Lamentations 1:19 – Connections

    19 ‘I called to my lovers,
    but they let me down;
    my priests and my elders
    perished in the city
    while seeking food
    to keep themselves alive.

    The Revised English Bible (Cambridge; New York; Melbourne; Madrid; Cape Town; Singapore; São Paulo; Delhi; Dubai; Tokyo: Cambridge University Press, 1996), La 1:19.

    Sometimes I meditate on these passages for a long time before I come up with what I want to say. Other days, the passage just shoves a topic in my face. This one is even related to the historical context of the verse more closely than usual!

    What connections do you build in your life?

    It’s a serious question. Many of us, myself definitely included, tend to gather friends and associates randomly. I’m rarely the one who pushes in and initiates a friendship. Others invite me. It’s not that I think others should have the responsibility of accommodating themselves to me. Rather, I’m just slow to figure out valid and constructive social connections.

    This verse presents the remnant of Judah in mourning. Their lovers let them down. Priests and elders are dead, and they died taking care of themselves, not their community. The failure is complete. In distress you turn to your support system. What happens if they aren’t there?

    There are two categories here I want to look at. “Lovers” in this passage represents friendships and social connections. Multiple lovers was a metaphor used frequently for the way Israel and Judah tended to look at the religions of the nations around them and pick up whatever looked good.

    Social connection without commitment will leave you empty and alone when trouble starts. Israel had contact with the nations around, but when what was left of the kingdom was in trouble, there was nobody there to help. In fact, the book of Obadiah is directed at the Edomites who were ready to go scavenge the corpse.

    We use the term commitment primarily of marriage, I think, but commitment should also be an aspect of friendship. A friend who is there for the easy part but stays away when things get tough is not much of a friend.

    What about your church community? What type of commitment have you made to that community? Is it just a plan to attend and get whatever benefit possible, but if somebody offends you or things get tough, you’re on your way?

    What about the attitude of the church to you? Is the commitment mutual? I often hear church leaders talk about how they want committed members. They complain about lack of commitment and look at ways to seek more commitment from members. But if any member asks what they get from this relationship, there is annoyance, even anger. You’re supposed to be here to serve, not to be served!

    But in a good relationship the commitment goes both ways. People want to be fed in Sunday School and church. The church leaders wonder why people are just expecting to get, get, get. Good point! The members should be looking to serve. But to serve, they will need to receive.

    And that relationship question can be reversed as well. Why is it so annoying when people want to receive from the church? Is it possible that the church doesn’t feel a commitment to its members? In a time of trouble will a member end up saying, “All my friends have let me down?”

    Service is an important and essential part of Christian life. But watch out for the person–or the organization–that demands but does not give.

    Can people in trouble come to you? Do you have a community you can depend on?

  • Lamentations 1:18: I Was Wrong

    Lamentations 1:18: I Was Wrong

    The LORD was in the right, for I rebelled against his command. Listen, all you nations, and look on my agony: my maidens and my young men are gone into captivity.

    The Revised English Bible (Cambridge; New York; Melbourne; Madrid; Cape Town; Singapore; São Paulo; Delhi; Dubai; Tokyo: Cambridge University Press, 1996), La 1:18.

    If you want to fix anything, the first step is acknowledging that something is wrong.

    I just got done revising a utility I created, or rather had Gemini AI code, for sharing site feeds between the various websites that are related to my publishing company, Energion Publications. An interesting thing about AI is that while it is not precise about doing what I want, as I’ve been accustomed to for decades, it can create a lot of code very quickly. This introduces a weakness. If I ask for the wrong thing, I generally get the wrong thing. The AI follows my plan for better or worse.

    The configuration file for my utility was grotesquely complex. It was precisely what I had asked for. The AI produced code that did what I asked. But my plan was not very good.

    After struggling for awhile to learn how to use the code I asked for I realized that this wasn’t going to work. I could probably figure it out, but I’d forget it in a day and then I’d have to start over. I played around with it for a few minutes, and realized there was a massively simpler way to set this up. Minutes later I had new code which works just fine.

    The first step in fixing this was to recognize that there was something wrong.

    AI’s, in my experience, are not good at recognizing what’s wrong. They usually dig deeper to make the current plan work. On this point, AIs are not that different from humans. Once we have chosen a path we’re likely to stick to it, whether it’s working or not.

    This verse is a key. “The Lord was in the right.” Conversely, I was wrong.

    Admitting error is often the gateway to success.

  • Praying – Lamentations 1:17

    Praying – Lamentations 1:17

    17 Zion lifted her hands in prayer, but there was no one to comfort her; the LORD ordered Jacob’s enemies to beset him on every side. In their midst Jerusalem became an unclean thing to be shunned.

    Lamentations 1:17 [The Revised English Bible (Cambridge; New York; Melbourne; Madrid; Cape Town; Singapore; São Paulo; Delhi; Dubai; Tokyo: Cambridge University Press, 1996)]

    “I’m praying.”

    This is one of the most common comments among Christians, combined with “I’ll pray for you,” or “you’re on the prayer list.”

    Honorable (or dishonorable) mention goes to “We’re sending thoughts and prayers.”

    To back up our prayer claims we tell stories of answered prayer, whether from scripture or from our own lives. Daniel in the Lion’s Den makes a good example. Spending the night with hungry lions and coming out uneaten is quite a feat!

    We’re less likely to talk about the times in scripture when praying didn’t come out so well. This verse is a good example.

    Zion is praying, and we know the outcome. Exile is coming. The verse says God has commanded it. The prayers are not answered, not positively. Destruction comes.

    Why is that?

    One reason is that people are doggedly pursuing a path of destruction. If I get drunk, jump in my car, don’t wear my seatbelt, and proceed to drive recklessly, there are certain likely results. The best is actually if I get pulled over and charged with DUI. The worst is death—mine, or that of an innocent person.

    But I prayed!

    Yes. And God was probably trying to get through with an answer, but as I drove down the path to destruction, I wasn’t able to hear the answer.

    Our verse says that the Lord ordered Jacob’s enemies to beset him on every side. Was God really trying to destroy Judah? It’s worthwhile studying this entire period of Israel’s history, not to condemn, but to learn from it.

    Often God has us beset on every side, by wise counselors, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and by the unrelenting force of the laws of nature. If we don’t allow those barriers to derail our ride to destruction, who do we have to blame?

    For years, I worked in IT, helping small businesses. I regularly told people that I could provide security tools and practices. Antivirus software could protect them. The one thing I regularly couldn’t protect someone from was their own actions. If you have a password and a secondary code that are both required for access, and you go ahead and give both of these to a bad actor, no amount of other security will protect you.

    I remember a call from a client who said she had just accidentally opened what she was sure was a bad email attachment. I asked her what she had done. “Just what you told me to do. I shut down the computer as soon as I realized it.” I was able to get her system cleaned up and running in less than an hour. (The bad payload was ransomware with high potential to make one’s life miserable.)

    At another office I walked up to a workstation to do some routine maintenance and noticed suspicious activity right on screen. I asked the user how long this had been going on. “Oh, I don’t know. Probably all day.” More than 12 hours and considerable expense later, the business got its network back. (Secure backups are wonderful!)

    The software was there, the tools were there, the policies were there. Two very different results.

    “I’m praying, Lord!”

    “Yes, but are you listening?”

    (Featured image generated by Firefly 4 Ultra according to a prompt generated by Gemini.)

  • Alone – Lamentations 1:16

    Alone – Lamentations 1:16

    This is why I weep over my plight,
    why tears stream from my eyes:
    because any who might comfort me and renew my strength
    are far away from me;
    my children have become desolate,
    for the enemy is victorious.

    (Lamentations 1:16, REB)

    “Aloneness” has different meanings to different people.

    I’m an introvert. This doesn’t mean I don’t like people, but social events are tiring for me. I particularly dislike social events that don’t have a program. Being expected to make small talk, or to show interest in random topics, makes me want to run and hide.

    My wife has said that at a party, she assumes I’ll find a chair in a corner and tune out the scene.

    So there is a positive sense to being alone, alone to think, alone to plan, alone to rest. Alone by choice.

    Then there is the aloneness that is the result of abandonment. When things start going wrong you find out quickly who cares and who doesn’t. People forget you exist because you’re no longer involved in what is important to them from day to day. There is a descending spiral, as you seem too anxious and needy when a visitor does appear. They may not have the energy to fill the loneliness in your heart.

    We tell others that there is no friend like Jesus. Yet sometimes we need the physical person in the room. “When I was in prison, you visited me,” says Jesus in Matthew 25:36. As Jesus often does, he reverses the situation as we see it. We’re thinking of seeing Jesus in the person who is visiting. I need a little encouragement from a real human, that physical person. But here Jesus is telling people what a good thing they did when the visited Him, Jesus, in prison.

    When did that happen? When the visited the person who is alone. When you did it for the least, the most insignificant, the least lovely. It’s not even limited to those unjustly in prison. When you visited the least important person in prison. Even if they fully deserved to be there.

    I follow my meditations when writing about these passages, and the meditations can go quite far afield. I want to bring this back to Judah and the exile, which underlies the text. Their country is destroyed. They have not friends. Potential friends only see targets and victims. Nobody is there to help because all those who were friends are destroyed or driven away. Judah is devastated and alone.

    And yet …

    They are still God’s people. We see this book preserved about mourning and lament, and we see the devastation, and restoration, partial though it appears. And we can look at this from the other side. What do you and I do about devastation? Do we ignore it and hope it doesn’t come to us? Or do we seek to change it?

    As I think about this, I’m drawn away from my own attitude about aloneness and I’m led to ask myself how often I visit someone who is shut in. How often do I encourage someone who is discouraged? How often is my voice raised in defense of the weak, the hopeless, the victims? Do I care even for those whose problems seem to be of their own making?

    I was talking to one of my authors recently and he told me he was headed to the Mexican border, where he would pray for refugees who were waiting there. He couldn’t even get to touch them, but he could pray, and he did.

    So what will I do for those who, to the world, are insignificant? What will you do?

  • Worthless – Lamentations 1:15

    Worthless – Lamentations 1:15

    15 The Lord treated with scorn
    all the mighty men within my walls;
    he marshalled rank on rank against me
    to crush my young warriors.
    The Lord trod down, like grapes in the winepress,
    the virgin daughter of Judah.

    The Revised English Bible (Cambridge; New York; Melbourne; Madrid; Cape Town; Singapore; São Paulo; Delhi; Dubai; Tokyo: Cambridge University Press, 1996), La 1:15.

    I’m meditating on these verses, intending to write one meditation per day, though I haven’t been keeping up. It can seem like the elements of just staying alive are “marshalled rank on rank against me.” If it’s not one thing, it’s another!

    Now in the historical context of this book at this verse, this is about the people suffering conquest and exile, and that by cruel conquerors. I want to emphasize that a key reason for this book being in the Bible, in my opinion, is to let people know it’s OK, and even healthy to acknowledge difficulties. Running around pretending things are fine when they aren’t isn’t healthy, and it isn’t productive. You can’t fix what you don’t recognize.

    But in meditating I started to think about the way we talk about troubles in our lives. I’m talking especially about those of us who are in some kind of ministry work. What do we say when obstacles are put in our way?

    Well, I’ve noted quite a variety, depending on who is talking and their attitude at the time.

    • I must be doing something right for the Lord, because the devil’s after me!
    • I must have missed God’s calling or instructions, because I can’t get through these barriers.
    • I need more people to pray for me, because prayer is powerful, so more prayer is more powerful!
    • I must keep my faith face on so nobody knows the trouble I’m seeing. (With apologies to the hymn!)
    • I must be very open and honest about this so other people realize that they’re not alone in having troubles.

    How do you know just how to react?

    How do you know, for example, whether the devil’s after you, or whether you’re encountering hardship because you have lost your way?

    You don’t. But that doesn’t really matter that much, because what you have to do is hold on to the one who does know. You’re probably going to be off the best path very frequently. It’s going to feel like the world is coming at you “rank on rank.”

    What do you do? I can give you all the advice: pray more, listen for the Holy Spirit, use your God-given brain, seek and accept help from others, be willing to correct your program.

    That’s good. I like to attempt those things. But most importantly, as the song says, “Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the waters.” He’s the one who can handle the problems that are coming at you rank-on-rank. Panic will get you nowhere. He will.

    (Featured image generated by Adobe Firefly Image 5, from a prompt generated by Google Gemini.)

  • Bound – Lamentations 1:14

    Bound – Lamentations 1:14

    14 ‘My sins were bound like a yoke
    tied fast by his own hand;
    set upon my neck,
    it caused my strength to fail.
    The LORD abandoned me to my sins,
    and in their grip I could not stand.

    Lamentations 1:14 (REB)

    I’ve actually been meditating on this verse over the last few weeks while I haven’t been posting. I think it’s rather important. I first thought about sin/sins in the way I’m going to speak of them here when I read Ezekiel 23:49 and several other passages that suggest that what the people suffer is simply their own sins brought back on them.

    Now this is a more graphic passage, in that we have the imagery of a animal, such as an ox, pulling a load that is secured by a yoke. This is a lamentation, so it’s important to “hear” the poet telling us about living under the yoke.

    Frequently we think of sins in the plural, and see them as a sort of list of infractions against ritual or formal rules. We could imagine a workplace where a series of annoying or even stupid rules occur. Since we’re thinking about God, we imagine that we have to check off the boxes because that’s how you get to heaven.

    This is not just a mistaken, but an inadequate view in so many ways. When there are suboptimal rules in a workplace, freedom is to be found in finding a better job, thus working in a better environment. You can compare workplaces according to how rewarding they are as a work environment. So you can compare “better” and “worse” workers on a checklist, and “better” and “worse” workplaces in a similar way. Freedom comes by escape to a better place.

    But when we talk about “sin” in the biblical place, this is the wrong view. Note here that the sins are bound to the person. The penalty is, in one sense, a complete lack of freedom. The ox cannot escape the yoke, and the lament is that the Israelites were unable to escape the yoke made by their own transgressions. Finally, we have the observation that the punishment here is God abandoning the people to their sins. This is what is causing their strength to fail. It is not some invented judgment or punishment. It is rather the result of their actions.

    But this takes us back further to the specific nature of sin, again as displayed in the Bible story. We think generally of making a list of our faults and failings and trying to overcome them. I once had a terrible temper. In fact, I still do. If I overcome that temper, I’ll be that much closer to God, right?

    Not so. It’s a good thing to tame one’s temper, but the problem is that that’s just an item checked off the list. It all goes back to the basic rebellion, the desire to be independent of God and of God’s commands. And the gap made by that is great.

    We’re not in the workplace, deciding whether we like it, or perhaps that we should move on to a better employer. We’re in God’s universe. The rules are the rules of life. As it says in Deuteronomy 30:15, we’re offered a choice of a way of life and good or death and evil. We don’t have the option of choosing a whole other plan.

    This is a great lamentation. We’re abandoned, not to some externally planned torment, but to the results of our own rebellion against the way of life, the way that is life.

    The starting point to recovery is simple. It’s coming to the point of sincerely making this lamentation.