Reflection: Wholeness: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

 Reflection Questions

         1. Were you ever mocked in school growing up? Or in public since? For what reason?

         2. Whether based on truth or lies taunts can pierce our 'inward parts'. How do you respond to them now as an adult?

        3. Do you think that God's truth can feel like being pierced when we recognize it? Why or why  not?

Share: What can make His piercing a hope instead of a bitterness?

Wholeness: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 3:13-15: "He made the arrows of His quiver To enter into my inward parts. .... ".

Wholeness

How often do we forget, or ignore, that before healing can begin the cancerous contents needs to be removed. In body, in thoughts, in memories, and in our soul.

The weakness, sin, and lies need to be identified. Brought out openly to see clearly.

Then through light and clarity we can recognize the hope to persevere. To follow the truth into His restoration.

Lord, please show us how to persevere through the decay and receive Your new path. To walk upright in Your wholeness.

Your thoughts,

Target: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                 Target

                Continues to walk streets

                searching--praying for an end

                dreads each corner's turn

                empty of tears, only

                shadows left as target

                cringes before another blow.

Psalm 37:13: "but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for He sees that their day is coming."

Reflection: Worry: Prayers and Poetry

 Reflection Questions

                1. Do you ever feel like  your past sins are lying in wait to trip you up?

                2. What word pictures come to mind if you ever feel that God is waiting for you to stumble? Why?

                3. How does worry over unknowns build up anxiety and cause exhaustion?

Share: In Psalm 59 the psalmist declares that the Lord Himself brings the salvation and upholds by His righteousness? How does this promise offer comfort?

Worry: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 3:10-12: "...He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces; He has made me desolate.

Worry

Too often desolations seeps into our lives--our hearts--our thoughts even when we know You are still present.

And holding fast to You is the only way to survive it. Even if we try to ignore You out of resentment or grief. When we falter into self-centeredness You stay waiting.

Your light is present if only we would see it flicker ready to burst into a flame again. But our worry and fear and failures fight back to barricade our hope, our healing, our fresh highway.

Show us, we pray, how to keep walking with You regardless of our weaknesses and isolation. To listen to the whisper from Your Spirit and obey as You lead.

Moment by moment.

Your thoughts, 

Walls: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                 Walls

                Her city now her prison

                walks the streets

                walled by pride

    

                haunting memories

                now chains gripping

                prayers, tighten

                not spoken

                powerless to climb

                away from past

                decisions.

Psalm 37:12: "The wicked plot against the righteous, and gnash their teeth against them."

                

Reflection: Ways: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions:

                1. What images do the words "no escape," "chains," and "blocked ways" evoke? 

                2. What walls have barricaded you in?"

                3. What walls have you built up against yourself? Against others?

Share: How has the Lord released you from them?

Ways: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Lamentations 3:7-9: ".... Even when I cry out for help, He shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; ...".

Ways

It often can take a long time, Lord, for each of us to even begin to understand these words and others like them. Especially when Your words also invite us to come directly to You in prayer.

In all circumstances and situations.

But then maybe we are still like toddlers crying and asking for things that are not safe. Or will lead us into temptations and destruction. Because we have not grown enough to recognize the imitation lures.

So You over-ride our cries to keep us safe and turn instead to seek Your truth.

Please help us to accept closed prayers and closed doors with as much thankfulness as we respond to open ones.

Keep us only on Your road. The one not even a fool can fall off.

And show us how to recognize  and respond to any words Your Spirit speaks into us.

Please keep us listening--Your way.

Your thoughts, 

Distress: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                           Distress

                        Walls breached

                        streets empty

                        silent distress

                        wails throughout.

                        Shadows creep

                        living dead

                        linger as corpses in

                        stricken city.

                        Lamentation

                        weaves darkness

                        wounded stagger

                        left to mourn.

Psalm 37:11: "But the meek shall inherit the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity."

                         

Reflections: Walls: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

 Reflection Questions:

                1. Have you had a season of bitterness, either within yourself or from another?

                2. In what ways did it taint all aspects of your days?

                3. How did you find your light in that situation?

 Share: How does that experience guide you now in times of darkness?

Walls: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

 Reading: Lamentations: 3:4-6: "... He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship. In dark places he has made me dwell....".

Walls

Sometimes in difficult situations, and sometimes in our thoughts alone, we think we have been abandoned. But He is always with us.

It has taken many years for some of us to recognize why these pulls into dark places, but now we hope to turn to You immediately, or not wait too long to seek Your guidance.

We have not always understood and still may not fully grasp why. But maybe even without being able to identify the reason of the darkness we can truly understand there will come the power and the blessing of Your light in Your time.

And maybe instead of building a cold heart to others we can begin to understand and act with compassion?

Lord, please keep us in Your silence in all situations.

Your thoughts,

Driven: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

                         Driven

                        The light has left.

                        Alone now in

                        darkness, cut off

                        from wisdom

                        driven into affliction

                        by wrath

                        day to day

                        His words

                        disappear in emptiness

                        alone now barren.

                        The light has left.

Psalm 37:10: "Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there."

Reflection: Walk: Lamentations: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions 

    1. When did you feel driven into darkness--into affliction--into a sense of "against me alone"?

    2. Did you believe that God purposely sent you? Why? Why not?

    3. How do our reactions to darkness affect us when we believe that God is making us walk alone, or is walking by our side throughout?

Share: What promise from the Lord helps you cling to His light?