Daily Devotion

Bill Lucke

There is much in The Bible that we do not hear from the pulpit on Sunday mornings. This is not because they are irrelevant, but because they are more suited to reflection than to worship. 

For example, see the book of Lamentations. It reflects a time when things could get no worse for the nation of Judah. Their armies had been conquered by Babylon, the sons of the king killed as he watched before he was blinded. The Temple where the Lord dwelt was looted and destroyed and the people taken into exile in Babylon. Their children are raised in a foreign culture, knowing different ways and different gods. 

Lamentations reflects the misery of the exiles: 

“This is why I weep
    and my eyes overflow with tears.
No one is near to comfort me,
    no one to restore my spirit.
My children are destitute
    because the enemy has prevailed.” Lamentations 1:16
The year 2020 inspires similar feelings. 

We are faced with civil unrest and confusion over the difference between demonstrators, who are expressing outrage in an intellectual reaction to injustice and rioters responding emotionally to the same injustice with rage. Using inflammatory language to express outrage does not help. 

We also must deal with a pandemic and the resulting conflicts of emotional and rational responses. We face choices between protecting economic well-being and minimizing health threats. Do we protect our children at the cost of their education? Must we give up football, baseball and new films and TV programs?

And, by the way, we have tornados, tropical storms, earthquakes, explosions, political scandals at the federal, state and local levels on our nightly news as well. And an election that no one is sure how to manage in all the confusion. 

Time to return to Lamentations (3:19-25):

“I remember my affliction and my wandering,
     the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”

When you wake up in the morning, God will be waiting.

2 comments on article "Daily Devotion"

Pastor Pat

Thanks for your reflections Bill. It is good to know the Lord will be waiting for me and everyone else too! Peace.

10/2/2020 11:45 AM

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Danelle Buelsing

It is comforting to be reminded of God's compassion, as reassuring today as it was in Old Testament days.

10/2/2020 11:25 PM

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