Words coming from the soul

17 my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is;
18 so I say, "My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the LORD."

19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 "The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
"therefore I will hope in him."

25 The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.

After witnessing the destruction of the Temple by King Nebakanezer, these words of Jeremiah come as a shock to me. He's alone in a cave, with no external reason to be hopeful. He's about to witness the scattering of the supposed chosen people, people losing faith, and in light of all this, he has no feasible way of reversing these occurrences. I thought my episodes of panic and stress were bad, but the intensity of Jeremiah's suffering is probably far beyond anything I've experienced. So how Jeremiah is able to put these words onto paper is a miracle in itself taking a faith and hope that, albeit battered and shaken, is still directed towards something he can gaze upon above the circumstances he's surrounded and suffocated by.

Jeremiah describes his soul as being "bereft of peace," the Hebrew word 'u·thznch' being a verb that refers to how his soul is being "cast off" from peace. I imagine his physical situation, being alone in a cave outside of the city, resembles the state he feels his soul is in, cast off, separated, and isolated from God and his people. He compares his afflictions to wormwood, a plant known for its bitter extract, and gall, or "poison." Jeremiah is making a reference to a cup of affliction that is too difficult for him to drink, causing his soul to bow lower and lower, laying "prostrate" as it is described in Hebrew. Jeremiah then finds hope by turning his mind towards remembering God's unchanging goodness, but we know now that God's goodness was shown to us through Jesus drinking the cup of humanity's afflictions, of my afflictions. I wish that meant that I would never have to be afflicted again by suffering or the things life throws at me, but those things will keep coming. So what was accomplished when Jesus drank the cup of my afflictions? He rescued our souls from death by making us free from sin's power of death over us. My soul is secure because of Jesus. So for someone of faith, such as Jeremiah, life may suck and circumstances could be bleak, but his words of hope come from deep within his soul, which has been made secure by God.

I'm reminded of the story of Horatio Spafford when he wrote the song "It is Well with my Soul." Losing his only son, then his four daughters in the sinking of a ship crossing the Atlantic, Spafford writes these lyrics as a testament not to how destitute his conditions are or how unfortunate his life has become, but to how his soul is still secured because Jesus shed his blood to defeat sin.

It is Well with my Soul - Horatio Spafford

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Created over 2 years ago