mattbraunlin
Member
- Nov 1, 2023
- 86
- 83
A Deep Cut for a Wounded Faith
I did not sign up for this.
When God first showed me the vision of my future, it was the biggest thrill of my life. The very idea of being chosen by the Almighty to play a major role in the sabotage of the spidery machine of sin which has control over his people… it was exciting beyond measure, and I accepted it eagerly, with the simple phrase, ‘I am at your service, O Lord.’
That was five years ago. Or five lifetimes. It is hard to remember which.
I did not know what I was getting myself into.
Is it God’s will that we should live in sorrow? Does he desire that we should live each day with a crushing weight of spiritual pain hung around our necks?
Having immersed myself for about six weeks in the writings of Jeremiah, it certainly seems that way. It was for him. Jeremiah is the longest Book in the Bible, and almost every word of it is devastating.
I have almost begged God to let me veer away from the life of this tragic man, chosen by him to live a life of endless grief and persecution. Chosen to watch his beloved people sink deeper and deeper into horrific sin, closer and closer to their inevitable destruction, and being powerless to do anything about it. My heart is seared black with how much I identify with him. How I wish I could go back to the Good Old Days when God called me to study lovely, feel-good Books like Mark and Ruth and 1 Peter.
I can't. Not yet. That much is clear. I was called to study Jeremiah, this bitterest of elixirs, and though I no longer want to, all I hear from God is a continuing urge to press on.
Yet God is good. So very good. He has blessed me with hope (a different kind of hope) which has shone a light into this darkness. It came from the unlikeliest of sources… not from Jeremiah's prophecies, but from his Lamentations.
Having finished reading through Jeremiah, I felt compelled to keep going into Lamentations, a Book I have never studied at all. I only knew that it was Jeremiah's tormented wailings at the fruition of the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of his people. I braced myself for yet more heartache. I found it. But I also found chapter 3.
Hope.
I can assure you: I never imagined I would need the type of comfort I have discovered in this chapter. It is not some syrupy, Light FM kind of hope like so many western Christians exclusively allow. It is the hope of a wounded, screaming soldier when the morphine hits his bloodstream and his agony is abated. It is the hope of the man wandering in the desert, having had just enough strength to crawl to the oasis and sate his desperate thirst.
It is a bitter hope. Hope sent from the same God who also sent my pain.
For sixty-six verses, Jeremiah sends us on one of the all-time spiritual roller-coasters ever recorded. The first 20 verses are a heaving and vivid description of where his faith has brought him: to be torn to shreds by God and crushed by his stony silence.
Never have I so closely identified with a Biblical writer. Not even the 40th Psalm hits as close to home as verses like this:
He has besieged and surrounded me with anguish and distress.
He has buried me in a dark place, like those long dead.
He has walled me in, and I cannot escape. He has bound me in heavy chains.
And though I cry and shout, he has shut out my prayers.
He has blocked my way with a high stone wall; he has made my road crooked.
v. 5-9
Is this what God has been ‘training’ me for? Have I been given so many gifts, overcome twenty years of agony and despair, been shown such beautiful visions, only to be told by God that my destiny is to sit on my hands and watch my nation descend into chaos, powerless to do a damned thing about it?
All I can do is keep reading. Cling with all my strength to the faith of Jeremiah as he explores himself, his people and the Almighty in the coming 46 verses.
How does one even scratch the surface? How can we grasp the breadth and complexity of the faith of a man who would claim
The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”
The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him.
v. 22-25
…and then declare just a few verses later,
“You have engulfed us with your anger, chased us down, and slaughtered us without mercy.
You have hidden yourself in a cloud so our prayers cannot reach you.
You have discarded us as refuse and garbage among the nations.
“All our enemies have spoken out against us.
We are filled with fear, for we are trapped, devastated, and ruined.”
Tears stream from my eyes because of the destruction of my people!
My tears flow endlessly; they will not stop until the Lord looks down from heaven and sees.
v. 43-50
This, my dear reader, is the reality of faith. Every bit as much as Psalm 23 or John 3:16, we must embrace the agonies of men like Jeremiah if we are to fully understand the nature of our God. We have forgotten his wrath, his terrifying hatred of sin. We have made a drinking buddy of the Almighty God, and in doing so we have become a passive and impotent force.
We refuse to stop smiling. And I assure you, we will stop smiling. Either way.
I suddenly wonder if Jeremiah is more worthy of being synonymous with grief and suffering than Job is. Job lost ten children; Jeremiah lost millions of children.
The shining light for me is when Jeremiah gets personal. He dismisses his peers. For just a moment he reflects on God’s direct action in his own life.
The water rose over my head, and I cried out, “This is the end!”
But I called on your name, Lord, from deep within the pit.
You heard me when I cried, “Listen to my pleading! Hear my cry for help!”
Yes, you came when I called; you told me, “Do not fear.”
Lord, you have come to my defense; you have redeemed my life.
v. 54-58
In this moment, with Nick Drake strumming appropriately from my earbuds, I recall what God has done. What he has saved me from and blessed me with. I recall that my story is my own, and despite the scorn and skepticism of my peers, I believe that God will hear my prayers, tear down the wall, end this damnable stage in my life and use me to do the good he promised to do through me.
Call me a raving lunatic if you want, but I believe there is still hope. I just wish I knew anyone else who does.
I must trust the Lord. My Father, my Master, my Saviour in this life and the next. I must trust that this suffering is meant for the same purpose which all of my sufferings have served: to make me an effective helper, a cunning warrior, and an extremely angry man of God.
I did not sign up for this.
When God first showed me the vision of my future, it was the biggest thrill of my life. The very idea of being chosen by the Almighty to play a major role in the sabotage of the spidery machine of sin which has control over his people… it was exciting beyond measure, and I accepted it eagerly, with the simple phrase, ‘I am at your service, O Lord.’
That was five years ago. Or five lifetimes. It is hard to remember which.
I did not know what I was getting myself into.
Is it God’s will that we should live in sorrow? Does he desire that we should live each day with a crushing weight of spiritual pain hung around our necks?
Having immersed myself for about six weeks in the writings of Jeremiah, it certainly seems that way. It was for him. Jeremiah is the longest Book in the Bible, and almost every word of it is devastating.
I have almost begged God to let me veer away from the life of this tragic man, chosen by him to live a life of endless grief and persecution. Chosen to watch his beloved people sink deeper and deeper into horrific sin, closer and closer to their inevitable destruction, and being powerless to do anything about it. My heart is seared black with how much I identify with him. How I wish I could go back to the Good Old Days when God called me to study lovely, feel-good Books like Mark and Ruth and 1 Peter.
I can't. Not yet. That much is clear. I was called to study Jeremiah, this bitterest of elixirs, and though I no longer want to, all I hear from God is a continuing urge to press on.
Yet God is good. So very good. He has blessed me with hope (a different kind of hope) which has shone a light into this darkness. It came from the unlikeliest of sources… not from Jeremiah's prophecies, but from his Lamentations.
Having finished reading through Jeremiah, I felt compelled to keep going into Lamentations, a Book I have never studied at all. I only knew that it was Jeremiah's tormented wailings at the fruition of the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of his people. I braced myself for yet more heartache. I found it. But I also found chapter 3.
Hope.
I can assure you: I never imagined I would need the type of comfort I have discovered in this chapter. It is not some syrupy, Light FM kind of hope like so many western Christians exclusively allow. It is the hope of a wounded, screaming soldier when the morphine hits his bloodstream and his agony is abated. It is the hope of the man wandering in the desert, having had just enough strength to crawl to the oasis and sate his desperate thirst.
It is a bitter hope. Hope sent from the same God who also sent my pain.
For sixty-six verses, Jeremiah sends us on one of the all-time spiritual roller-coasters ever recorded. The first 20 verses are a heaving and vivid description of where his faith has brought him: to be torn to shreds by God and crushed by his stony silence.
Never have I so closely identified with a Biblical writer. Not even the 40th Psalm hits as close to home as verses like this:
He has besieged and surrounded me with anguish and distress.
He has buried me in a dark place, like those long dead.
He has walled me in, and I cannot escape. He has bound me in heavy chains.
And though I cry and shout, he has shut out my prayers.
He has blocked my way with a high stone wall; he has made my road crooked.
v. 5-9
Is this what God has been ‘training’ me for? Have I been given so many gifts, overcome twenty years of agony and despair, been shown such beautiful visions, only to be told by God that my destiny is to sit on my hands and watch my nation descend into chaos, powerless to do a damned thing about it?
All I can do is keep reading. Cling with all my strength to the faith of Jeremiah as he explores himself, his people and the Almighty in the coming 46 verses.
How does one even scratch the surface? How can we grasp the breadth and complexity of the faith of a man who would claim
The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”
The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him.
v. 22-25
…and then declare just a few verses later,
“You have engulfed us with your anger, chased us down, and slaughtered us without mercy.
You have hidden yourself in a cloud so our prayers cannot reach you.
You have discarded us as refuse and garbage among the nations.
“All our enemies have spoken out against us.
We are filled with fear, for we are trapped, devastated, and ruined.”
Tears stream from my eyes because of the destruction of my people!
My tears flow endlessly; they will not stop until the Lord looks down from heaven and sees.
v. 43-50
This, my dear reader, is the reality of faith. Every bit as much as Psalm 23 or John 3:16, we must embrace the agonies of men like Jeremiah if we are to fully understand the nature of our God. We have forgotten his wrath, his terrifying hatred of sin. We have made a drinking buddy of the Almighty God, and in doing so we have become a passive and impotent force.
We refuse to stop smiling. And I assure you, we will stop smiling. Either way.
I suddenly wonder if Jeremiah is more worthy of being synonymous with grief and suffering than Job is. Job lost ten children; Jeremiah lost millions of children.
The shining light for me is when Jeremiah gets personal. He dismisses his peers. For just a moment he reflects on God’s direct action in his own life.
The water rose over my head, and I cried out, “This is the end!”
But I called on your name, Lord, from deep within the pit.
You heard me when I cried, “Listen to my pleading! Hear my cry for help!”
Yes, you came when I called; you told me, “Do not fear.”
Lord, you have come to my defense; you have redeemed my life.
v. 54-58
In this moment, with Nick Drake strumming appropriately from my earbuds, I recall what God has done. What he has saved me from and blessed me with. I recall that my story is my own, and despite the scorn and skepticism of my peers, I believe that God will hear my prayers, tear down the wall, end this damnable stage in my life and use me to do the good he promised to do through me.
Call me a raving lunatic if you want, but I believe there is still hope. I just wish I knew anyone else who does.
I must trust the Lord. My Father, my Master, my Saviour in this life and the next. I must trust that this suffering is meant for the same purpose which all of my sufferings have served: to make me an effective helper, a cunning warrior, and an extremely angry man of God.
