Contemplative Bible Reading

Lamentations 1:22 (New Living Translation)

22 “Look at all their evil deeds, Lord.
Punish them,
as you have punished me
for all my sins.
My groans are many,
and I am sick at heart.”

The writer here is crying in sorrow. The people sinned for generations and are suffering for their choices. “Once a queen…now a slave.” “All her friends have become her enemies.” “Tossed away like a filthy rag.” The description goes on and on.

The writer suffered along with all the people. The writer’s enemies heard about his troubles and they were happy to see what God had done.

Now the writer cries for some sense of justice or fairness or something. Pain to his enemies will ease his pain. Right? Huh? Misery loves company? Something like that.

Pain and suffering clouds logic and thought and all sense of sensibility.

Me? I live the good life. I am rich beyond measure. I don’t suffer. Surely my blessings are the result of my upright living and moral superiority and … How stupid I am.

I guess prosperity also clouds logic and thought and all sense of sensibility.

I’m a sinner. I am not better than the people who disobeyed God and were the subject of the lamentations and sorrow recorded for us. I am saved by grace, a gift from an all-giving and all-blessing God. Thank you God, and please, help me in my unbelief and my all-too-often thought that I am blessed because I am so good.