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Friday, December 31, 2021

Verdict: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

               Verdict 

                Only by God's
                forgiveness can
                our land, our lives
                find restoration.

                O Lord, ruler of generations
                forget we plead
                our sins, our rebellion
                forever reign.

                Once more in our hearts
                families of the earth
                on bended knee, worship
                final verdict Yours alone.

                Omega, return we pray.

Psalm 37:40: "The Lord helps them and rescues them; he rescues them from the wicked, and saves them, because they take refuge in him."

                        Isaiah 61:1-4

                 "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
                because the Lord has anointed me;
                he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
                to bind up the brokenhearted,
                to proclaim liberty to the captives,
                and release to the prisoners;
                to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor
                and the day of vengeance of our God;
                to comfort all who mourn;
                to provide for those who mourn in Zion--
                to give them a garland instead of ashes,
                the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
                the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
                They will be called oaks of righteousness,
                the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
                They shall  raise up the former devastations;
                they shall repair the ruined cities,
                the devastation of many generations."

Thank you for sharing Lamentations throughout this year. In 2022 -yikes already-we will take a walk through 1 & 2 Peter. 

Blessings and prayers on the beginnings of a new fresh year.

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Reflection: Redemption: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

 Reflection Questions

        1. What verdict towards our sins has God shown us in Jesus?

        2. How does this gift change our heart desires?

        3. What rescue or restoration do you seek through His forgiveness now?

Share: How can we help each other to overcome defeat and come before Him on bended knees?

Monday, December 27, 2021

Redemption: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 5:21-22: "Restore to Thee, O Lord, that we may be restored; Renew our days of old. Unless Thou hast utterly rejected us, And art exceedingly angry with us."

Redemption

Lord, too often we forget that this day is extra special. That we can engage in Your light. That each new day is a gift from You. That we are invited to be with You in all circumstances.

We ask that You continue to renew and restore each of us on each of our days as needed; that we may walk in Your purpose and authority. Give us strength for whatever we are called to be or to do.

Restore each of us. Regardless of the year behind or even the day we ask You for clear vision and open hearts to recognize and receive Your ongoing gift of living grace.

May all Your wandering children return. May all our families be rooted again in relationship with You. Each one heart to heart.

We ask for fresh vision--new courage--to step where You lead.

"Thy will be done."

Your thoughts,

Friday, December 24, 2021

Heritage: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                 Heritage

                Bereft of city

                squandered heritage

                struck by own sin

                barren future

                eyes dim

                fatigue saps strength

                forgotten by God

                ever hungry

                seek return of

                child's status

                create once more

                a sincere heart.

Psalm 37:39: "The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their refuge in the time of trouble."

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Reflection: Refuge: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

        1. Do you find your heart striving more for an earthly heritage or an eternal one?

        2. What comfort does knowing that God reigns from generation to generation bring?

        3. How does God's constant and abiding presence comfort you when experiencing your own lament?

Share: What comfort does it bring to know He sees each one of us as His child?

Monday, December 20, 2021

Refuge: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

 Reading: Lamentations 5:16-20: "....Woe to us, for we have sinned! Because of this our heart is faint; Because of these things our eyes are dim; ... Thou, O Lord, dost rule forever; Thy throne is from generation to generation."

Refuge

Too often the Lord's truth becomes hidden or buried behind our fears and worries and confusion. Only He can guide us with the truth that we need to follow His purpose in all situations.

His path.

Lord, we ask You to show us the way to go. May we hold Your hand, as a toddler does, with love and trust and curiosity to see the ongoing road You choose.

Your thoughts,

Friday, December 17, 2021

Despair: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                 Despair

                Molested 
                beaten
                abandoned
                mourning buries
                broken hearts
                all despair

                dancing youth
                long forgotten
                songs silenced

                deliverance
                last hope
                seek Savior

                Messiah
                bound
                answered
                mediates faith
                brings truth
                all return.

Psalm 37:38: "But the transgressors shall be altogether destroyed; the posterity of the wicked shall be cut off."

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Reflection: Restore: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

        1. What has been the most recent season where mourning has silenced the joy in your life?

        2. Were you able to keep bitterness and fear from taking hold? How?

        3. Like Israel are you able to cling to God and turn to Him when evil appears to prevail?

Share: Psalm 30 says that the Lord has turned "my mourning into dancing." Do you believe the Lord will do this? have you experienced it yourself?

        

Monday, December 13, 2021

Restore: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 5:11-15: "...Elders are gone from the gate, Young men from their music. The joy of our hearts has ceased; Our dancing has been turned into mourning." 

Restore

Mourning--loss--fear--tears--each rip us apart. We replace love and hope with anger and dread and sometimes become determined to battle. Or sometimes to fade away into isolation internally and externally.

Grief cannot be mended. Yet only in the Lord can it be softened into sadness and memories. To remember and embrace without torment.

To cherish life day by day in all circumstances and become compassionate to others in heartbreak.

Lord, guide each of us to pray to hold onto You in grief and in joy, in mourning and in joy, in isolations and joy. Your light alone, by Your direction, will show us how to live into peace in all circumstances.

Your thoughts,

Friday, December 10, 2021

Survival: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                Survival

                Under scorching

                heat of famine

                carry the sins

                of ancestors

                face wilderness

                threats daily

                to survive

                pact with slave lords
            
                to beg bread

                meager cups

                crawling with insects

                our daily survival

                at whim of servants

                bored with humanity

                derision their

                conversation.

Psalm 37:37: "Mark the blameless, and behold the upright, for their is posterity for the peaceable."

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Reflection: Everywhere: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions 

        1. In what ways do you think we might also carry the sins of our heritage?

        2. What unrelenting desert seasons have marked your life?

        3. How can we break the consequences from continuing on to the next generation? Or can we?

Share: How does the gift of salvation carry us through times of heart and soul famine?

Monday, December 6, 2021

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, 

 

Friday, December 3, 2021

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."

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

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?

Monday, November 29, 2021

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,

Friday, November 26, 2021

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."

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

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?

Monday, November 22, 2021

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,

Friday, November 19, 2021

Cause: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                Cause

                Power, riches, influence
                lured them away
                prophets, priests chose
                license over commitment.

                Silenced the truth
                with platitudes
                sugarcoated consequences
                watered down principles.

                Righteous died
                their sin the cause
                responsible actions
                turned to soul sacrifice
                now scattered
                blind wanderers
                no honor to defiled
                blood-stained deeds.

Psalm 37:34: "Wait for the Lord, and keep to His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on the destruction of the wicked."

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Reflection: Purpose: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions 

        1. Have you ever stubbornly been deaf and blind to the Lord's counsel? Why?

        2. How did your decision affect others close to you?

        3. How empty did you become before returning to His grace?

Share: How do you confirm truth now when you are uncertain?

Monday, November 15, 2021

Purpose: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 4:13-18: "... They wandered, blind, in the streets; ... The presence of the Lord has scattered them; ... Yet our eyes failed; ... They hunted our steps So that we could not walk in our streets; Our end drew near, Our days were finished For our end had come."

Purpose

When we come to our ends our lives change whether for good or potential danger. It is hard to break away.

Yet the Lord knows all of our days past and future. We need to listen. So that we can follow the path He chooses next. Even if the next stage brings danger and heart sickness we are only safe in His guidance. In all new beginnings.

Lord, please show us how to pray to see the closed doors and then through Your grace and purpose give us courage to step out into the next open road.

Your thoughts, 

Friday, November 12, 2021

Disbelief: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                 Disbelief

                Desperate people
                resort to terrible acts
                as life drains away
                sacrifice most beloved
                sons and daughters
                desperate to live.

                Disbelief astounds
                outsiders at calamity
                no one truly thought
                this city could fall
                protection assured
                disbelief now shudders.

Psalm 37:33: "The Lord will not abandon them to their power, or let them be condemned when they are brought to trial."

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Reflection: Path: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

 Reflection Questions

        1. Have you ever hungered for something to the degree that you were willing to sacrifice anything in your desperation?

        2. When can our faith shift into assumptions regarding our external welfare?

        3. In what ways do we begin to depend on our 'good' circumstances instead of God's grace?

Share: Do you still cling to His grace in times of trial? What keeps you grounded through profound calamity?

Monday, November 8, 2021

Path: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 4:7-12: "Better are those slain with a sword Than those slain with hunger; For they pine away, being stricken...And He has kindled a fire in Zion Which has consumed its foundations. The kings of the earth did not believe, Nor did any of the inhabitants of the world. That the adversary and the enemy Could enter the gates of Jerusalem.

Path

We do not listen.

We do not hear Your warnings.

We blame others and exclude ourselves.

And then we turn our anger against You, Lord. And we step further away.

Yet You do not leave us.

You restore each one of us when we finally see the truth.

Forgive us, we pray, for all the complaints and charges we have accused others and not accepted the consequences of our own sins and failures.

Please show us how to stay on Your path of obedience on all our days. Keep our  hearts adn minds and souls centered on Your will only.

Your thoughts,




Friday, November 5, 2021

Shards: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                 Shards

                Cruelty enters hearts
                children beg for bread
                ignored like shards
                on a potter's hearth.

                Sacred stones tarnished
                scattered everywhere
                once held in respect
                another refuse.

                Shadow city
                stumbles through days
                clinging to ash heaps
                dead inside.

Psalm 37:32: "The wicked watch for the righteous, and seek to kill them."
                

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Reflection: Purity: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

        1. What shards of sin, from yourself or others, have tarnished God's truth for you--especially towards worship?

        2. How might we be able to identify the 'cracks' dissolving our faith before they sabotage our relationship with the Lord and with others? 

        3. What hopes have failed to thrive because of starvation/deprivation in your life?

Share: Do you believe the Lord can, or will, still use earthen vessels? Why? Or why not?

Monday, November 1, 2021

Purity: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 4:1-6: ... "The little ones ask for bread, But no one breaks it for them...For the iniquity of the daughter of my people Is greater than the sin of Sodom...".

Purity

These passages feel so true in our world  right now with each of us blind in our self-centeredness and our sins. Plus politics and bureaucracy and arguments raise the battleground.

Show us please how we can kneel in our hearts and souls and minds and thoughts. To bring them all before You to be seen in Your light. So we can walk away from the sins that cling. And discern the false decisions.

None of us can see paths properly on our own. Please guide each of us step by step on Your words. We pray to kneel and lift to You in our desires, in actions, and especially in compassion to others as You lead.

Your thoughts,

Friday, October 29, 2021

Recompense: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                  Recompense

                Only by God's hand
                can the enemy be
                vanquished.

                Only then can the
                barrage cease
                pounding.

                Only when see the 
                conquerors condemned
                ourselves.

                Then perhaps by
                mercy's intervention
                can evil cease.

Psalm 37:31: "The law of their God is in their hearts; their steps do not slip."

                

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Reflection: Slipping: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions 

        1. Do we trust God's version of recompense in all situations? Why? Why not?

        2. How do we recognize when we ourselves have hardened our hearts against His truth?

        3. When God doesn't respond in the ways we desire, what do we trust He will do?

Share: What work has given you the most unexpected joy that He led you to?

Monday, October 25, 2021

Slipping: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 3:64-66: "Thou will recompense them, O Lord, According to the work of their hands." 

Slipping

Lord, we need You to please keep our souls and desires to be filled with Your words and Your desires.

So that the works of our hands follow only You and not break away from Your truth and plans. So that we will not slip away onto false roads.

Help us to stay committed to whatever 'that thing' is of Your choice. Keep the work of our hands guided and cleansed by Your Spirit.

Your thoughts,


Friday, October 22, 2021

Mocking: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                 Mocking

                Murmurs gurgle 

                Like a stream under

                Storm, a constant

                Rush of sound

                Erratic, chaotic

                No soothing melody

                Shape into taunts

                Day and night

                Strumming chords.

Psalm 37:30: "The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak justice."
 
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