Lament

Have you ever let a piece just flow from your heart and it just takes a shape or form of its own?  When I write from the moments where my heart is heavy or the emotions or thoughts are high, I think of Lamentations in the Bible.

 

Lamentations can be such a heavy read. It’s the weeping and sorrow of many, yet poetic. It combines a deep hurt yet with optimism and hope and trust that God will hear and come through. It strikes the heart with a jagged blade while bleeding prayers of redemption.

“She weepeth sore in the night and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies” 

 

Goodness, all night long she cried. I imagine a mascara streaked face on an abandoned, hopeless woman. Now, turn this image into a broken city with broken people. No one is there to aid her, comfort her, or even be a shoulder of support. Even the enemies used to be her friends and now she stands alone. There are only tears and pleas. Despair hangs upon the city and its residents like a fog that never clears.

 

Let me ease up off that… my goal of this post was to share a meditation that I heard from Steven Furtick in relation to the Psalms. And I truly am going to continue to review this daily. It’s very much needed right now and the days to come. It’s an encouragement.  You’ll see what I mean. This is what he said:

 

“The Lord is my chosen portion. To abide in me, my words abide in you. You bear much fruit. Sometimes you’re going to get cut on, but you’ll never be cut off. If you’ll abide in me and my words abide in you, there will be a constant flow of joy. Like the vine and the branches, you’re going to have what you need. The joy is going to flow from a place of your rest and trust in me, not in your own effort and not just in certain things that happen. If they happen. it’s fine. But, don’t confuse the icing with the cake. Abide in me, my words abide in you.”  

 

See what I mean? I don’t know about you but to have heard this and read this just feels like a balm for the places that need it the most. Take a moment to reread it again. Let that just sit in your Spirit for the day, tomorrow, and the rest of this month.