When sadness stirs

Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD.
Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

What do we know of unfortunate events and heartbreaks, seated in our cotton-soft comfortable chairs, our room temperature set just right and our doors locked to protect us from the cold night air and mosquitoes? What do we know of dung, dust, and dead dogs? What do we know of leather poisonings and leprosy? What do we know of the kind of famine that instigated mothers to hard-boil the newborns?

Life was harsh. And it was the kind of world that Jesus and His people lived in. Without a set canon or apt tools to write, they exercised their memories. With so much more fluidity in what was "sacred", yet set as solidly as a rock in their ways. Today, in a world where the word "truth" has lost its meaning and instead of a lifestyle, we have layers of piety and rarity of a "saint". With a brain that tends to google than to hold in our favorite proof texts, we think we are so much smarter than they.

Indeed, what do we know of hardship? Yet alas, 'tis so easy to wallow in the unfavorable circumstances nonetheless. Christian spirituality has weakened remarkably during last fifty years or so (at least in the West), and although we may be aware of more things intellectually and be technologically advanced, being unable to cope with slightest hints of storm, we may be coping with the most unfortunate spiritual circumstances in history. I do not like the unorthoprax person I have become in this age, yet it is God's grace and my lot that I should utilize my circumstances to the fullest.

I however, do wish to return to that state of primitiveness... As a product of the educated age, it is hard to believe on that, it is indeed God's grace that we are forced to seek Him in our hardship. I wish and pray that reality would become as "real" to me as it was to the people of Jesus' time.

Then He asks me, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it?"

And atop that speechless state that I am left in, what I find in the Scriptures are unfathomable and puzzling promise of rescue and hope -- and above all the unveiling of God's name and its significance.

God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'YHWH, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my title for all generations... I declare that I will bring to you up out of the misery of Egypt, to the land... flowing with milk and honey.'"

-Exodus 3:14-17

In the end it all remains to me a great mystery, but who am I to complain. Break me and all sovereignty be Yours.