Everywhere: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 5:6-10: ... "Slaves rule over us; There is no one to deliver us from their hand. We get our bread at the risk of our lives Because of the sword in the wilderness..".

Everywhere

At first it seems these circumstances are so different from our lives and yet in some ways they are still the same.

Around the world we too get caught up in forms of bondage due to conditions, like a pandemic, and authorities and rulers--some that compromise safety in their aim for power.

We speak our truths at risk of condemnation and can receive broken relationships.

Or we keep silent and find ourselves drifting away from the Lord.

The wilderness is still deep and wide and filled with dangers. Everywhere.

Soul danger. Truth danger. Cost danger. Without You, Lord, everything is nothing.

Please lead us to go where You go Lord. To see daily through Your light and be Your people wherever You guide. Your heart within us throughout all our actions and decisions.

Your thoughts, 

 

Cost: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                Cost

                Her people pay now 

                to draw water from

                their own wells

                work in fields to

                earn day's wood

                twigs for night warmth.

                Once the owners

                now laborers on

                their own land.

                Given to aliens

                dressed in strange

                garments. Foreign voices

                command heritage.

Psalm 37:36:"Again I passed by, and they were no more; thought I saw them, they could not  be found."

Reflection: Errors: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

 Reflection Questions

        1. Have you had to relinquish your life as you knew it due to your own sin or another's?

        2. What all did it cost you?

        3. Do you think it's possible that such a devastation can become a blessing? Why or why not?

Share: How does the act of being remembered put us back together or restore us?

Errors: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 5:1-5: ... "Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, Our houses to aliens... We are worn out, there is no rest to us."

Errors

Even then Your people asked You to remember what had "befallen us" and we too often forget that the answer to us is also due to our own sins, or ignorance, or disinterest to care--until we are personally affected. Revealed that we have forgotten to follow Your words.

In our despair, our weakness, our fatigue, may we remember Lord that we need to recognize the whole truth: our errors, our excuses, and Your warnings that we ignored.

Please open our hearts again to seek Your forgiveness and show us again how to live for You despite our losses, our weaknesses, and our weariness. So that whatever circumstances we face our heart and soul will be centered on You and Your way.

Your thoughts,

Completed: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                 Completed

                Pursuit ended

                stricken by swift

                captured on nets

                shadow covers

                

                quiet emptiness

                punishment completed.

Psalm 37:35: "I have seen the wicked oppressing, and towering like a cedar of Lebanon."

Reflection: Exam: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

 Reflection Questions

        1. What hope does the knowledge that sin will be punished--regardless of heritage--give you?

        2. Have you been betrayed by those you trusted, or failed by any who had promised to help?

        3. Are you willing to have your own hidden sins exposed to you by the Lord?

Share: How might that change your relationship with Him--with yourself?

Exam: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 4: 19-22: ... "The punishment of your iniquity has been completed, O daughter of Zion; He will exile you no longer. But He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins!"

Exam

We are each responsible for our own actions. How we treat others--how we act in kindness and forgiveness--or in hatred and revenge.

Before we accuse others we need to be honest within ourselves.

We ask Lord, for Your forgiveness when our immediate reactions are to complain, to make inner and outer assumptions, to blame others but not ourselves.

May we learn to seek You first and ask for Your strength to see what is the truth and obey the consequences in trust."

Your thoughts,