Readings for today: Lamentations 3:37-5:22
I remember hitting rock bottom. It was August 1992. I had just finished my first summer after my first year of college. Things were not good. I had bombed my first year of school. Too much drinking. Skipped too much class. I had been in Maine all summer coaching lacrosse and threw myself into the “camp counselor” lifestyle which involved a lot of drinking and casual sex. Several nights, I woke up passed out at the bar where we partied. I was about as far from God as can be. I came back in a dark place. Depressed. Empty inside. Ashamed of the person I was becoming. My whole life was in a tailspin and I could feel every rotation.
There is only one place to go when you hit rock bottom. You turn to God. Within the first week or so of being on campus again at college, a friend of mine invited me to a student ministry. I figured I had nothing to lose. I didn’t realize it at the time but my life changed the moment I walked in those doors. God met me there in a powerful way. Drew me in. Gave me new life. New hope. A sense of joy. I looked around and saw so many students who seemed to have something I did not. I joined a small group Bible study to find out how to get it. Those men loved me. Blessed me. Put up with my foolishness. I remember asking them to hold me accountable to only drinking one beer an hour at the parties I attended. I failed almost every week but they stuck with me. My life was still not going well. I was still drinking far too much. Still missing too much class. But there was something about this group of guys. Spending time with them became my lifeline. The highlight of my week. Going to Late Nite - our student ministry fellowship - was something I looked forward to. It was a bright spot in an otherwise dark time for me.
A few months went by. I found myself walking alone on the way to the Student Center. Right by the parking garage. I can still picture exactly where I stopped and looked up. A realization hit me that day. Looking back, I can see how it had been growing all semester. This sense that God was very real. The young men I studied the Bible with believed Jesus wasn’t just some old dusty historical figure they admired. They actually believed He was alive and suddenly I realized I did too. And if that were true then everything in my life needed to change.
Lamentations is an account of what happens when we hit rock bottom. It’s ugly. Especially when we’re watching the fall of a nation. I’ve seen what happens when governments fall. When political unrest and instability reigns. I’ve seen the effects of famine, drought, and starvation. I’ve witnessed what happens when people lose all hope of ever escaping poverty. I’ve been approached by women selling their babies in the streets. I’ve seen disease ravage bodies because they had no access to healthcare. I’ve held the hands of the dying and prayed over them as they pass from this brutal world. When I read Lamentations and the accounts of the ash heaps, women boiling their children for food, people wandering listless in the streets, and those wishing for a swift end at the edge of the sword; I think of some of the places I’ve been. This is actually happening today in places like Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. The people in these places suffer tremendously and in their suffering, they look to God. They beg for help. They ask Him to intervene.
The good news is God often does through the efforts of His people. Through organizations like World Relief, World Vision, and International Justice Mission who intentionally go to the front lines of these conflict zones to offer what they can. From the opening pages of Genesis, God had determined to bring blessing to this world through the creatures He made in His image. To them He gave dominion and authority over all He had made. To them He gave power and responsibility to care for all He had made. To them He gave the command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And now that call comes to us. What will we do with it? How will we come alongside the suffering? Will we be the ones God uses to lift them up? This is the truth we are forced to confront over and over again. Whenever the question is raised, “Why does God allow such suffering?” We have to look in the mirror and own the fact that we are the ones who created these conditions. We are the ones who tolerate the inequalities that exist in our world. We are the ones who spend our lives building up riches and resources while so many around the world go without. The real question. The honest question. The question we don’t want to face is not...”Why does God allow such suffering?” That’s passing the buck. Playing the same blame game Adam and Eve began way back in the Garden. No, the real question is “Why do WE allow such suffering?” We who have the means and the technology and the resources. Why do we continue to withhold these things from those who need them most?
Readings for tomorrow: Ezekiel 1-4