Lamentations

     I'm involved in a study, a Bible study.  Wouldn't you know it came about the same time that I determined again to read the Bible from the beginning; so instead of doing one or the other, I'm doing both ...whether I have "time" to or not. 
     In was "assigned" this morning to read Lamentations 3:22-23.  Instead, I decided to check a few things on the computer first.  I saw that we have $105 in our account.  I read friends' updates.  I began wondering why the "well man" hasn't come yet and if we will.  I thought about what I ate last night.  I finally went to the porch to read and considered how much yard work there is to do because of the rain, except that the riding mower needs a belt that we can't afford just yet.  Then, I remembered that we should just push mow.  Afterall, what makes sense about exercising indoors when there's work to be outdoors?  Yet, restoration of ab tone doesn't always come with regular activity.  I started thinking about our neighbor who had a heart attack, then that we haven't planted anything in the garden he plowed us and that we should seed for a fall garden ...and so on and on and on I thought, until I remembered I was out there to read God's Word and to hear what he has to say specifically to me, not even about my family and friends, but about me and to me. 
     Back to Lamentations:  it's hard for me to read verses out of context, so I started at the beginning of chapter 3 and it stung me like wasp.  If you are serious at all about finding God, you will also take the time to read Lamentations 3.  It begins with, "I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.  He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.  Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all day."  Read for yourself all the feelings he continues to spell out.  If you suffer at the hands of an oppressor or even a situation, you surely will understand.  Then, in verse 21, he comes to his senses, "This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.  It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.  They are new every morning:  great is thy faithfulness." 
     I halted there, knowing my error.  If only we would go to the Lord straight away every single morning.  I could've seen Him clearly instead of through the myriad of issues I have at hand.  He knows it's going to rain again tonight and that, yes, we got up late and that it's okay to get outside for a while because learning can be done tonight since Mike is away and it won't detract from our time together.  He knows what a mess I make when I plan.  He knows that I want my children to love His Word and that if it isn't being received well that I hesitate to move forward to other subjects.  He knows that I was brought up like most everyone else these days, compartmentalizing.  He knows that I think everything needs its place and time and how hard it is for me to learn the natural paths of things, "a little here and a little there".  He knows I procrastinate when I don't know what to do, when things aren't going my way.  He also knows I owe my children an apology for not following Him daily, because ...I know they excel in important matters but that I've failed them in things I've deemed less paramount.  As simple as those things may be, they too hold value in the order of life.
     All I had to do this morning was start it by PRAISING Him instead of PLEADING to Him, you know that prayer most of us have, "Show me!" "Help me!" "Save me!" "Give me!"  Now, is that really trusting?  That He will answer, yes ...but that He IS helping already, no.  I could've said immediately, "Thank you for the safety and comfort with which you guarded us and gave us rest last night.  Thank for a new day to rest in obedience of your will for me."  But, no, I had to quench my curiosity about ongoing matters.  Thus, I went to God with a racing mind and troubled heart.  And we must know we can and should do that, BUT how can God teach us Who He IS if we never come to Him in silence, ready to be filled with His presence and His Word?
    So, beginning in verse 28 I read, "He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.  He putteth his mouth in the dust; is so be there may be hope.  He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.  For the Lord will not cast off for ever:  but though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.  For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men."  I could hardly move from these verses.  You may've noticed I don't have as much to say lately and I had just read why.  God is teaching me things I don't claim to understand right now.  But these I know:  that I trust Him and that He's taking me somewhere I haven't been with Him. 
     In shuffling through "school" materials, trying to toss out anything that isn't fundamental, anything that is diverting us from gravely important things; I found an old handout that describes the path to Christian maturity as desire/"want to", dedication/"try to", determination/"got to", and finally discipline/"how to".  I've been hung at determination so long that the "got to" just won't let me stay where I am.  And I'm just plain tired of not making it to discipline, struggling with the same things I've found in my old letters.
     Verses 39-41, "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?  Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.  Let us lift us our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens."
     Do we think because we aren 't blatantly disobeying commandments that we are good?  Do we think because we have "respectable" positions and homes that we aren't sinning?  When is the last time you read James 4:17, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin"?  You and only you are accountable to that statement.  God and only God knows if you've ever known Him at all.   Are you doing as much as you can or as little as you can?  Are you searching or are you hiding?  These are the questions I'm asking myself and in my silence, I'm finding the answers to.