If you feel empty and alienated from God; if you feel stale and spiritually lifeless; if you feel that you have fallen from where you once were with God, then Lamentations is the book for you. It contains the key to finding the pathway back. It is not the key to a pathway that takes you back to God. Rather it is the key to a pathway that brings God to you. Many people who let themselves slide away from God often end up feeling paralysed in their alienation. They feel unable to move from where they are. That is okay because, actually, God does not want us to try and move ourselves out of this condition. That feeling of paralysis is a reflection of how things really are. You can’t move yourself from where you are. Only God can do this. What you must do is ask God to come and take hold of you. The exiles in Babylon were never going to be able to set themselves free. But God had promised them that, if they cried out to him in their exile, that he would bring them back. God’s promise to you is the same. He knows that you can’t change your situation and he doesn’t want you to try. He wants you to recognise what got you there and call out to him to begin to save you (a process that you must then co-operate with). This is Jeremiah’s message in Lamentations: “Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord.”
Ask God to move you from wherever you may feel stuck.
Read Lamentations 2:15-22
