Week 34: Cruel
Weekly Chapters:
Jeremiah 37 - Lamentations 5
Passage of the Week:
Lamentations 4:3
Adjective:
1. Willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress
2. Enjoying the pain or distress of others
3. Causing pain
4. Rigid, stern, strict
Thesaurus:
· Atrocious
· Evil
· Bitter
· Harsh
· Brutal
· Spiteful
· Callous
· Unkind
Father God,
I know I can be cruel. My words can cut like a knife. I can put something in words that can cut deep and wound quickly. My wounds can be sharp and brutal. Give me eyes to see the effects of my words.
Amen
Authentic vulnerability:
I know I can be cruel. I know that I can say something that cuts like a sharp blade right down to the bone.
“It’s not what you said, but how you said it,” Yep, I heard that one before.
“Are you angry with me?” Oh no, what did I say this time?
“Mommy, you’re scaring me.” Oh, that one I will remember forever.
I came home from work one day, likely overstressed. I came upstairs from the garage, and the house is not entirely a mess, but there were messes: my words, yelling, my volume. Why can’t you kids pick up after yourself was the theme, but I do not remember the words. My daughter, likely eight or nine, says to me, “Mommy, you are scaring me.” What must I have looked like, sounded like? How cruel was I being? What scars was I creating?
“I learned that people forget what you said, people forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelo
What is your Authentic Truth?
Study:
Lamentations are the elements or sorrows of the Israelites in poem form. In Lamentations, the Israelites call out the punishment by God, which they see as both cruel and just.
The Israelites began to live poorly. The Israelites became cruel. They stopped loving one another. One of the author’s poems calls out to the Israelites.
Lamentations 4:3
Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but my people have become heartless like ostriches in the desert.
God’s strict hand on the Israelite people, including the destruction of both Judah and Israel and the resulting capture of His people, demonstrates God’s great pain from being disobeyed for so long. As shown in Jeremiah, God’s anger and His decrees of being taken over by Babylon were seen as cruel and just by His people. The Israelites knew they had not followed God, nor did they respect Him as they worshiped idols.
Lamentation 4:11-13
11 But now the anger of the Lord is satisfied. His fierce wrath has been poured out. He started a fire in Jerusalem that burned the city to its foundations.
12 Not a king in all the earth—no one in all the world—would have believed that an enemy could march through the gates of Jerusalem.
13 Yet it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the sins of her priests, who defiled the city by shedding innocent blood.
14 They wandered blindly through the streets, so defiled by blood that no one dared touch them.
15 “Get away!” the people shouted at them. “You’re defiled! Don’t touch us!” So they fled to distant lands and wandered among foreign nations, but none would let them stay.
16 The Lord himself has scattered them, and he no longer helps them. People show no respect for the priests and no longer honor the leaders.
God’s anger came down hard on His people. God showed a human emotion that then resulted in the punishment of his people. His people cried out in lament, and they began to realize their errors.
This bears parallel to my anger and cruelty followed by my daughter’s lament.
· I was angry after seeing the mess when I got home.
· I yelled in rage.
· My children felt the wrath.
· My daughter responded in lament.
· What’s the lesson here?
For me, the lesson may be more complex than the lessons you take away. For me, the lesson is that I let my frustration get to a point where I blew up. I let things eat at me a little at a time until it comes to a head, and I blow my top. Instead of handling my anger and stress constructively, I get to the point that things get real, real scary, and I turn into a monster. I say ugly things that cut like a knife with my words. I can be cruel with my words and make people feel small.
A friend of mine once said, “hurt people, hurt people”. Meaning people who are hurting on the inside will lash out and hurt others. How true this is.
Father God,
Thank You for seeing me for who I am and helping me understand myself and give myself grace. Seeing Your humanness in Your anger against Israel helps me understand my anger and grief. Lord, You are my father, my teacher. I love You, Lord.
Amen.
Homework:
Are you cruel at times or say cruel things? You may not be, or you may.
If you do see yourself be cruel at times, slow down and ask why.
Why did I lash out?
What physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, or even chemically is happening in me that makes me lash out?
You may feel similar or not at all the same. But, understand or seek to understand what brings on feelings of cruelty for you.
