Life's Inanities and Ironies

We don’t read Lamentations much anymore. It’s too raw. Too uncomfortable. Too much like looking in a mirror we’ve spent decades trying to avoid. But chapter 5 is not poetry for the faint of heart. It is a naked, desperate prayer from a people who finally realized the party was over and the bill had come due. Jerusalem lies in ashes. The temple is gone. Children are starving in the streets. Princes hang from enemy gallows. Women are violated in the holy city itself. And the survivors—those who once boasted of their heritage, their covenant, their “blessings”—now lift trembling voices and say: “Remember, O LORD, what has come upon us;   look, and see our disgrace!” (Lam 5:1) They are not whining. They are confessing.   They are not blaming Babylon . They are blaming themselves. And if that doesn’t terrify Bible-believing Christians in America today , nothing will. Because everything they describe is here.   Everything. Our inheritance has been handed over t...

In times of national crisis —be it devastating hurricanes ravaging coastlines, economic turmoil shaking the foundations of society, or pandemics that bring a nation to its knees—we often feel lost, much like the Israelites after the death of their great leader Joshua . The book of Judges opens with a powerful scene: "After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Lord, 'Who of us is to go up first to fight against the Canaanites ?' The Lord answered, ' Judah shall go up; I have given the land into their hands'" (Judges 1:1-2). This moment, rooted in Israel's conquest of the Promised Land , teaches us a timeless truth: when disaster strikes, our first response must be to inquire of the Lord. Imagine our nation facing a catastrophic event, such as the recent floods that have displaced thousands or a financial collapse echoing the warnings in Scripture about trusting in riches rather than God ( 1 Timothy 6:17 ). In such chaos, human efforts—governme...