Pray at Your Own Peril

Last updated on: March 2, 2017 at 9:47 pm by Chase Padusniak

Pray at Your Own Peril 2017-03-02T21:47:41-04:00 Chase Padusniak

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Nebuchadnezzar’s Madness by William Blake (c.1795-1805). Source: Wikimedia, Creative Commons License.

When I first began practicing the Faith (poorly), I printed out some Bible verses during Lent so that I could put them up on my wall. My choice was, to say the least, odd. And yet, revisiting these words a few years later, I cannot feel that there are any more appropriate for Lent. I may make my practice to read them over and over, for here is the whole season—justice, desolation, loneliness, fear, sadness, debasement, pain, separation, lowliness, scorn, mercy, love, redemption, holiness, sanctification. Behold:

I am one who has known affliction
under the rod of God’s anger,
One whom he has driven and forced to walk
in darkness, not in light;
Against me alone he turns his hand—
again and again all day long.
He has worn away my flesh and my skin,
he has broken my bones;
He has besieged me all around
with poverty and hardship;
He has left me to dwell in dark places
like those long dead.
He has hemmed me in with no escape,
weighed me down with chains;
Even when I cry for help,
he stops my prayer;
He has hemmed in my ways with fitted stones,
and made my paths crooked.
He has been a bear lying in wait for me,
a lion in hiding!
He turned me aside and tore me apart,
leaving me ravaged.
He bent his bow, and set me up
as a target for his arrow.
He pierced my kidneys
with shafts from his quiver.
I have become a laughingstock to all my people,
their taunt all day long;
He has sated me with bitterness,
filled me with wormwood.
He has made me eat gravel,
trampled me into the dust;
My life is deprived of peace,
I have forgotten what happiness is;
My enduring hope, I said,
has perished before the LORD.
The thought of my wretched homelessness
is wormwood and poison;
Remembering it over and over,
my soul is downcast.
But this I will call to mind;
therefore I will hope:
The LORD’s acts of mercy are not exhausted,his compassion is not spent;
They are renewed each morning—
great is your faithfulness!
The LORD is my portion, I tell myself,
therefore I will hope in him.
The LORD is good to those who trust in him,
to the one that seeks him;
It is good to hope in silence
for the LORD’s deliverance.
It is good for a person, when young,
to bear the yoke,
To sit alone and in silence,
when its weight lies heavy,
To put one’s mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope—
To offer one’s cheek to be struck,
to be filled with disgrace.
For the Lord does not
reject forever;
Though he brings grief, he takes pity,
according to the abundance of his mercy;
He does not willingly afflict
or bring grief to human beings.
That someone tramples underfoot
all the prisoners in the land,
Or denies justice to anyone
in the very sight of the Most High,
Or subverts a person’s lawsuit—
does the Lord not see?
Who speaks so that it comes to pass,
unless the Lord commands it?
Is it not at the word of the Most High
that both good and bad take place?
What should the living complain about?
about their sins!
Let us search and examine our ways,
and return to the LORD!
Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands
toward God in heaven!
We have rebelled and been obstinate;
you have not forgiven us.
You wrapped yourself in wrath and pursued us,
killing without pity;
You wrapped yourself in a cloud,
which no prayer could pierce.
You have made us filth and rubbish
among the peoples.
They have opened their mouths against us,
all our enemies;
Panic and the pit have been our lot,
desolation and destruction;
My eyes stream with tears over the destruction
of the daughter of my people.
My eyes will flow without ceasing,
without rest,
Until the LORD from heaven
looks down and sees.
I am tormented by the sight
of all the daughters of my city.
Without cause, my enemies snared me
as though I were a bird;
They tried to end my life in the pit,
pelting me with stones.
The waters flowed over my head:
and I said, “I am lost!”
I have called upon your name, O LORD,
from the bottom of the pit;
You heard me call, “Do not let your ear be deaf
to my cry for help.”
You drew near on the day I called you;
you said, “Do not fear!”
You pleaded my case, Lord,
you redeemed my life.
You see, LORD, how I am wronged;
do me justice!
You see all their vindictiveness,
all their plots against me.
You hear their reproach, LORD,
all their plots against me,
The whispered murmurings of my adversaries,
against me all day long;
Look! Whether they sit or stand,
I am the butt of their taunt.
Give them what they deserve, LORD,
according to their deeds;
Give them hardness of heart;
your curse be upon them;
Pursue them in wrath and destroy them
from under the LORD’s heaven!
(Lamentations 3:1-66)

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