AWAKEN: DAY 6

REMEMBER, YOU ARE DUST AND TO DUST YOU WILL RETURN.
READING - DAY 6

Lamentations 3:22-24

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." (NIV)

MEDITATION BY Eric Herron

In 1998, I was exiled. I was violently expelled from my home against my will.
All my attempts at re-entry were rejected. I was stiff-armed at every border.

Exile for me equaled pain. It was as if the wind had been knocked out of me and I was stuck in that moment between the impact on my chest and the refilling of my lungs. Here, my spirit was nearly consumed.

In 586 BC, the people of Jerusalem were exiled. Babylonian forces starved, ravaged, and brutally murdered many of the city’s inhabitants. The walls were burned. The survivors, led away. Lamentations is a collage of wretched sketches from this incident that initiated the scattering of the Jews, coming to define Israel as a people exiled from their own land. The onslaught of degrading snapshots—including such images as mothers cannibalizing their own children—rarely stalls as it plows from one chapter to the next. Even the final verse of the book leaves open the terrifying possibility that God has “utterly rejected” his people.

But there is hope for all exiles. In the center of this desert of lament, we locate an oasis. While the other chapters each stop at verse 22, the middle chapter launches a meditation on hope in its 22nd verse. It begins: "Because of the Yahweh’s great love we are not consumed..." The word "consume" means to take in or use up . As purchasers, we consume everything money can buy. As minds, we consume ideas. As organisms, we consume food and drink. Consequently we, ourselves, are altogether taken in and vacuumed up, indiscreetly swirled together with all we insatiably invite into our lives. At this point, the purchaser is bought and owned. The eater becomes the eaten. Our own consumption leads to us being consumed.

What is our salvation from the consumption of us and by us? We are saved by divine compassion. The word "compassion" literally means suffering with. When the LORD chooses to enter our suffering, we cannot be overwhelmed either by what we take in or what takes us in. For, it is in God’s taking in of us—the orphan, widow, exile, misfit, sinner—that the circle of consumption is finally broken. We are consumed with him alone.

My divorce in 1998 nearly ruined me. It was only God’s limitless compassion, renewed daily, that kept me from being sucked up by my pain into oblivion.
Israel was nearly ruined, too. But the LORD’s unfailing love has sustained them through exile, persecutions, and holocausts, preventing their disappearance as the people of God.

We need not over-consume nor be consumed over our circumstances. God has set aside the perfect portion for those he loves. He is our portion. He is also our consumer. And so, we wait patiently to be taken up into his peace.

REFLECTION


What is it that threatens to consume you?


In the past, when you have been surrounded by potentially consuming circumstances, how have you responded?


How might you begin to put unhealthy consumption to bed and awaken yourself to God’s compassion?