Saturday, September 30, 2006

Want some depression reading?
Try Lamentations. Job is overrated. (okay, it isn't. but it didn't have the same effect on the heartbroken and neglected exploration geologist.)
Points that I took home after reading were:

"Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is none to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies." 1:2
This pretty much sets the stage of a city that, due to its rebellion and turning away, has lost not only God but everyone else as well. Similar emotions felt by a girl who has, in the process of chasing the wrong thing, lost not only God but the respect of her co-workers as well.
(Seriously, read this book when you're broken hearted.)

From verse 2:5, we read that "The Lord is like an enemy..."
Something that I very rarely consider. I like to think that my rediculous actions are not going to have a punishment associated with them. Part of me thinks that the New Testament is the end of this kind of thing at the hands of God, but how can I expect there to not be destruction?
a lesson? a hard lesson?
(Of course, my favorite verse is Isaiah 42:3, which was shown to me when I was afraid of a good reprimand at the hands of God, and I was encouraged to lay it out because I won't be handed more of a 'lesson' than I can take)

Of course, later in the book this is addressed (but I still like to think about the God-as-enemy issue and whether it still stands...)
"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my sould is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefor I have hope." 3:19-21
The "this" to which he refers being the Lord's great love and compassion. Maybe there is hope for one such as me as well.

"For men are not cast off from the Lord forever." 3:31

But how much strain can the relationship take before we are given up on? Some say none. I'd like to think that, but then there is that nagging question:
"I became a born-again Christian in grade 7 at an alter call. I was kinda religious through college, but now I'm in my 30s and really, I don't believe in God and don't want to live like a Christian anyway. I wanna have fun, be rich, get stoned. If this crap is true in the end though, can I still be saved? I guess I could repent on my death bed or something..." What happens when the supposedly saved fall away? were we ever saved to begin with or was it not a serious choice even then? Are we forgiven? Are we shit outta luck?
The same doubts resound in the last verse of the book, even though the writer seems convinced throughout the book that, despite all the pain he has endured, he is not forgotten.

"You, O Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures from generation to generation.
Why do you always forget us?
Why do you forsake us so long?
Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may return;
renew our days as of old
unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond
measure" 5:19-22

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home