Restore Us to Yourself, O Lord

 

 

 

Lamentation 5:1-22

 

April 19, 2024

 

Restore Us to Yourself, O Lord

Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace!
Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.   We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.  We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought.  Our pursuers are at our necks; we are weary; we are given no rest.  We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, to get bread enough.  Our fathers sinned, and are no more, and we bear their iniquities.  Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand.  We get our bread at the peril of our lives because of the sword in the wilderness.  Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine.   Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah.  Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders.  Young men are compelled to grind at the mill, and boys stagger under loads of wood.  The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music.  The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning.  The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!   For this, our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim, for Mount Zion which lies desolate: jackals prowl over it.   But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations.  Why do you forget us forever? Why do you forsake us for so many days?  Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored!  Renew our days as of old—unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

 

I can only imagine what it is like for people who were blessed so greatly to now be slaves.  As a free people, it is hard to grasp the anguish of these Jewish people, who had by choice turned their back on God, to seek other gods that could not see nor hear.  But now in desperation, they are crying out to the God of both Heaven and Earth, the one who loves them too much to allow them to continue living in sin.

As a person who has been in Christ for 50-plus years, and who has the freedom to write and speak my beliefs, I’m witnessing the hand of God and His protection as our nation​ moves away from God.  I know what it is like to be without, and God and my Lord Jesus Christ have blessed me to have much.  I live with this understanding of Luke 12:48, ^“But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.”

 

The people of Judea realized that they had sinned; it could not be their father’s sin, but their sins, that God was judging them for.  Each of us must come to that point before we can move forward with the calling of our lives.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice