Proverbs 31 talks about the virtuous woman, the one that is to be looked for by every man. In verse 25 it says that she is “clothed with strength and dignity” … and that she “laughs without fear of the future”. Knowing this verse, I was a bit vexed because I do not see that I am currently laughing, or even truly confident in what tomorrow or this year brings.
I was thinking today about how I have found myself, yet again, in another “funk”. I guess that’s the word we use when we’re too afraid to say, “a fog”, “feeling distant from God”, or when we’re too uncomfortable to say “depressed”. Either way, I felt frustrated because I was thinking “I can’t write about this, I’m always writing about the calamities and hard things. I should be writing about how I’m like the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31”. But I guess if you want to see someone’s picture perfect life you can just go watch their Instagram or Facebook and see all the pictures they post of their beautiful children, engagement, vacation, or successes. Social media is the one place that we have to manipulate and control our “lives”, or at least how it appears to others. But here with this blog, I think I’ll just be honest.
OTHERS WHO GOT IN A “FUNK”
I found myself thinking, I resonate more with the “Weeping Prophet” or “Man of Sorrows” when it comes to actually being inspired to write something. In case you aren’t familiar with those two terms, the “Weeping Prophet” was Jeremiah, obviously in the book of Jeremiah, but also believed to have written the book of Lamentations. He was sent by God to warn Israel of their destruction if they did not turn of their selfish and wicked ways and choose to run after the Lord. But the people would not heed his beckoning. Because of this he was deeply grieved: “You who are my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me. Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away: ‘Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King no longer there?’… Why have they aroused my anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?” (Jer. 8:18-19).
“Man of Sorrows” is Jesus, specifically as he is depicted in Isaiah 53: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces… He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted…” (v.3-4). But there are obviously more times we can see Jesus grieved: at Lazarus’ tomb, in the Garden of Gethsemane, etc.
THE ROOT OF SORROW
And let’s be honest, the Bible is filled with suffering servants: Job, David, Isaiah, and so forth. But what I have found is the grief of those in the bible ultimately come down to one or both of two things.
1. Conviction of sin and understanding the gravity of it before the Almighty YHWH/awareness of the brokenness in this Earth, or
2. The feeling, belief, or actuality that God is not close by, and that He has distanced himself (Hell on Earth).
WELCOME TO MY MIND
I know that the main cause to me feeling how I am is that I do not feel that God is near. You know the song by Hillsong “Highlands”? Yea, I have to remind myself of those lyrics:
O how high would I climb mountains If the mountains were where You hide O how far I’d scale the valleys If You graced the other side
O how long have I chased rivers From lowly seas to where they rise Against the rush of grace descending From the source of its supply
In the highlands and the heartache You’re neither more or less inclined I would search and stop at nothing You’re just not that hard to find
It’s that last line that I’m having a hard time believing. It’s like God, why does it feel like journal praying is like “climbing the mountains”? Why does studying my bible feel like “scaling the valleys”? Why does trying to listen to your voice, O Lord feel like “chasing rivers”? Lord, you say you’re not that hard to find, but everything here in the past month has felt like WORK, it has felt like it requires and energy that I don’t have right now. Patience towards others has felt like it’s gone out the window, because I don’t feel like I have the strength from you. Fighting temptations seems nearly impossible. The only times I have felt close to you is when you’ve used others to speak to me. So yes, you’ve spoken to me, but I want more. Since Romania in month 10, all I’ve wanted is more. More of you! To hear my Dad’s voice! I don’t have the strength to climb mountains, scale valleys, or chase rivers… I’m just sitting in our field on our rock, and that’s it. That is ALL I can do, but I am DESPERATE!
This songs chorus says,
No less God within the shadows No less faithful when the night leads me astray You’re the heaven where my heart is In the highlands and the heartache all the same
This IS MY HOPE! I am obsessed with this King who has come and taken away every charge that has ever been laid on me. This King who objects and obliterates every charge that is thrown my way now. The longing in the waiting is hard, but I know that my Groom is preparing a place. He will take me there in the end and there will be no suffering, there will be NO “FUNKS”, and there will be no lies. There will be no sin to struggle with, there will be no one else’s sin to feel mourning over.
ULTIMATE HOPE
So throughout this blog, I’ve been trying to riddle myself of how Jesus was perfection, Jeremiah a trusted servant, David a Man after God’s own heart and yet they were not corrected in their sadness. Why did no one tell them they would be more virtuous if they would just laugh like the woman of Proverbs 31. No one told them “smile”, like people so often do because they’re uncomfortable with emotions other than happy. No one told them “oh, don’t worry or stress”, last time I checked Jesus was the only one I saw who could command emotions. Because it wasn’t about the actions. Their emotions, their weeping, all of that was a product, and action. Of course, Job’s friends did try to correct his actions, but we found out soon enough that they were in the wrong. It’s because we need to look at the heart. A sorrowed or angered heart could be of the Lord. When your heart is positioned to the Lord, and your torn apart over sin, THAT IS GOOD! When your heart is positioned to the Lord, and your longing and desperate for more of Him, THAT IS GOOD! We’ve become a society that just wants to fix everything. But sadness is not always something to fixed. Sometimes it means you do nothing, sometimes that means you weep with them, sometimes that means you just let them feel that emotion. And don’t try to tell me that sadness is bad because our Father in Heaven and Jesus both carried those emotions, and to say that sadness is bad you’re going to have to say that God is imperfect.
You want to know why she laughed at the future? She wasn’t laughing because she trusted in tomorrow, she wasn’t laughing because she had confidence in her next year. She was full of joy at the coming of the King.
She knew where her ultimate hope was.
The same as Jesus knew that the Father was his ultimate hope, so when He knew that on the cross for a moment He would be separated from the Father, he mourned.
The same as Jeremiah knew that God was Israel’s ultimate hope, so when they rejected God, he wept.
The same as I know God is my ultimate hope, so when I do not feel him near, I lament.
