Blind Faith
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Wallowing
Wallowing
Last week we read from Lamentations, and talked about the incredible “permission to mourn” God gives us. The Bible not only allows us to lament, it teaches us how. Expressing our anger at God, our confusion, our doubt, our questions, our grief, bringing it God as an act of worship. We worship in spirit and Truth.
Frankly, I’m not great at that piece of things. I want to skip past the “mourning” and get back to joy and peace… and it’s tempting to “fake it until I make it.”
That’s not always a bad strategy, but I need to be honest before God and before some trusted and trustworthy brothers and sisters in Christ.
HOWEVER: there is an equal and opposite error.
I think of a particular friend in the park. Everytime I talk to him, he is surreptitiously drinking something out of his flask. And it always comes with a story.
It’s because he is suffering PTSD from his experiences in the military. His friend died “recently” (two months ago), that’s an excuse to drink. Oh, another friend, one he went to high-school with and hasn’t seen for 10 years is sick, have to drink.
He lives in the grief, in the pain, in the sadness… but he isn’t “processing.” He just lives there.
What do we do with that?
We understand the lament of the prophet. As the song we heard last week “I know someday I’ll be okay… but not right now.” or “Not while my house is burning down.”
We understand a season of grief… but how long is the season? Is there a time limit?
And is there anything we can do in the midst of it?
We know from the story of Job: it is possible to be mad at God and not sin, as Job did. And it is possible to “curse God and die.” To give in to despair and just wallow in the grief, rejecting God entirely, cursing Him.
How do we “lament” honestly and not “wallow” in our pain?
Lamentations 3
Lamentations 3
Remember the poet (possibly the prophet Jeremiah). He has seen his nation fall, Jerusalem besieged for 30 months, people starving to the point of ultimate desperation, mothers eating their young. He has witnessed the horrifying end of his world and now he sits in the ruins of it.
Lamentations Chapter 3 carries the anger at God of the other chapters. Similar to those, it uses this poetic acrostic format, literally walking through the Hebrew alphabet, a-z, beginning each verse with the letter.
But Chapter 3 is three times as long, three verses in a row with Aleph, three in a row with Bet, etc…
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;
he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;
surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones;
he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy;
though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;
he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.
He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;
he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate;
he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.
He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver;
I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.
He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.
He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;
my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;
so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”
Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
I “call” or “restore” it to my “mind” or “heart”
LEV says “I will put this in my heart.”
So… what is it we “call to mind?”
Truth: Who God Is
Truth: Who God Is
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
That is who God is. He is good, good to those who wait. He is faithful. He is a Savior, so wait for the salvation of YHWH.
I call all of that to mind. I don’t feel it yet, but I practice it, I think on it, I remind myself that it is true, I preach it to myself.
Truth: What God Will Do
Truth: What God Will Do
The chapter continues, he isn’t done with grief. He isn’t done with mourning. He isn’t done with anger. He still feels all those things.
But he recites to himself, holds to the truth that he knows… even when he can’t see it.
For the Lord will not cast off forever,
but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.
This is temporary, I know what God will do, even if I don’t like His timing. I know how the story ultimately ends, even when I hate this chapter.
I call that to mind. He will not cast off forever, victory is coming.
Truth: What God Has Done
Truth: What God Has Done
For those who are saved, you already have a story of God saving you. And if you’ve been a disciple of Jesus for a minute or more, you have a dozen stories of God rescuing you. Remind yourself of what He has done for you before:
“I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit;
you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’
You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’
“You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.
Ummm.... yeah!
Preach it! To myself! When I need to hear it! Write it down now, so you remember it in the darkness.
What do we feel? What do we see? Here it is:
he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;
That’s what we feel, that’s what we see, that’s our experience in the moment. What do we know?
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
Walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor 5:7)
We had a coach who used to YELL that at us. (Well, mostly he yelled it at Jono). “Walk by faith, Jono!”
Jono’s running, crying, “I don’t know what you mean! Not sure how that applies right now???!”
Walk By Faith
Walk By Faith
It isn’t a command in that Scripture. It’s a description. We don’t see Jesus in the flesh right now, so we walk by faith.
It’s an acknowledgment that, we WISH we could see Jesus in the flesh, God clear in front of my face right now… but we don’t. And that sometimes, in the midst of trials and tribulations especially, it is even harder to see.
I remember driving camp trail in the truck. Organizing a group of kids to take the trash out to the dumpster. We want to make a boring gross job (taking out the trash) fun.
So my solution: do dangerous things.
I’d wait for a straightaway and... flip off the headlights. It’s dark. Like all the way dark. How many streetlights are there up at camp? None. Maybe stars, maybe moon, but in the shadow of trees, and in contrast with the headlights. Pitch dark.
So kids start screaming. You know, super fun!
Continue foreward by “remembering” the truth.
I can’t go for long… because I don’t trust my memory that much, and I didn’t see that far ahead… but I can go for a minute in the dark because I remember what the light showed me… and I know the light is coming back.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
I remember seasons where my finances fell apart and I wasn’t sure I could provide for my family anymore. I didn’t see God as “provider”, just the fear that I wasn’t.
I remember searching and seeking God’s face as my family was ripped apart and wounded in divorce, everyone hurt and broken… and all I saw was “end.” The end of my family as it was, the end of ministry, the end of plans and visions and dreams… God where are you in this? Where’s the light here?
And it isn’t that God gave me this grand revelation to illuminate the seasons of darkness, the miles through wasteland.
But he showed me light again, love again, goodness again. He showed that He is good, and that He is faithful, and that He still can work through a broken vessel like me.
We are very often blinded by our emotion. Blinded by our fear. Blinded by the darkness.
You, Christian, aren’t twisted and torn by the vagaries of the human heart. You have a heart, and you can and should feel all the things… you can and should be honest with trustworthy brothers and sisters in Christ… you can and should be honest above all with God who sees you and knows you fully...
But your heart does not decide or determine who you are.
And it certainly doesn’t decide or determine who God is.
He is good, even when you can’t see it.
He is love, even when you don’t feel it.
He loves you, even when you don’t believe it. Or Him. Or in Him. He loves you.
He is who He is, always.
And you are who He created and crafted and called you to be. Loved and Redeemed and Forgiven and Empowered for His Purpose.
There may be a season where you just need to lament. 4 out of 5 of the laments. Just pure lament. It may be for a week, for a year, but it isn’t for a lifetime.
And so, poet, prophet, call to mind what you know to be true.
Preach gospel to yourself.
Proclaim who God is to your heart.
Tell yourself the Truth.
As you walk in darkness, remember the last glimpse you saw in the Light.
The darkness is a momentary thing. A passing obstacle. The path is where the path really is, the trees are where the trees really are. The truth is what I saw in the light.
And then continue in faithfulness.
Who am I going to be in the season of darkness? When God seems far from me?
I’m going to be faithful. Because He is faithful.
I will remember what He has done for me in the past.
I will remember what He will do for me. Maranatha: come quickly, Lord Jesus.
And I will remember who He is.
Most of the time, we don’t get to choose our circumstances. But we do get to choose our focus. We get to decide what we fill our mind with, what we dwell on, what we “call to mind.” As Paul put it:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
So let’s do this. Let’s call to mind who God is, what he has done for and what He will do.
Let’s stand and sing these words of Lamentations:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.