My son’s favorite book is currently We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. If you haven’t read it, it’s about a family that goes on a bear hunt, enduring long wavy grass, snowstorms, deep cold rivers, and other obstacles as they hunt for the elusive bear. As they approach each obstacle they say, “We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we’ve got to go through it!”. This phrase is repeated over and over as the intrepid family of bear hunters seeks their prey.
I started thinking of that book and that phrase when I was reading Lamentations. As Jeremiah laments the fall of his beloved Jerusalem, he acknowledges the sins of his nation. And even as Jeremiah acknowledges that God is just in His judgement towards Judah and calls his people to repentance, he acknowledges how painful the way forward is. Because there is no easy way forward. The people must endure God’s righteous judgement. They can’t go over it or under it, they must endure it.
I’m sure I sound like a broken record, but I see so much of of Israel’s sins, suffering, and discipline reflected in our country today. The world seems to reach new heights of evil and brokenness each day. So much so that my husband and I, half joking and half serious, have talked about picking up and moving to the middle of nowhere and homesteading. But that’s not what God has called us to. We cannot skip over the suffering or the discipline that Lord has for us. We have to go through it. We have to.
In his book A Time For Confidence author Stephen J. Nichols recounts the theologian Jerome’s reaction when he heard of the fall of Rome in 395 AD:
“Jerome took the death of Rome as a sign of the end of the world. Life as he knew it was crashing down…the barbarians were at the gate. Jerome was not sure of what was coming next. What would become of the world without Rome? What would become of Christianity without Rome? He traced out every possible scenario in his mind. It was all bleak. Jerome mistakenly placed his confidence in Rome and in the empire.” (Stephen J. Nichols)
We have to relinquish our white knuckled grips on whatever else our hearts are clinging to for hope. While we can rejoice and praise God when He gives us good leaders, we can never place our hope in them. As Jeremiah laments, “Our eyes failed, ever watching vainly for help; in our watching we watched for a nation which could not save us” (Lamentations 4:17).
We have to let go of whatever dreams of riches or comfort that we have had for ourselves and our children and decide in our hearts today, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to live and die for the one who was slain for us. Perhaps we won’t ever be called to physically die for our Savior. But we’re already being called to die to our desires of being well thought of by the world. We can’t keep a biblical sexual ethic and still garner the applause of the world. We cannot go along with the world as they “live their truth” when in it stands in direct opposition to God’s truth and leads straight to the pits of Hell. And we cannot simply stay silent or move to the hills or caves, hoping to avoid it all. Because God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control. God gives us full armor to wrestle against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” (Ephesians 6:12). And we must wrestle. We must resist. We must “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” (Philippians 3:14).
I hope and pray that my children get to enjoy all the freedoms that I have gotten to enjoy throughout my brief 33 years on this earth and in this country. But not at the expense of their souls. Not at the expense of their affections being turned toward the stuff of this world. Not at the expense of placing their hope in America instead of in Christ alone and eternity with Him.
“What we need today, more than sight, is vision. Seeing in our day easily leads to fear. In fact, this has been the case through most of the ages. One of the things that separated the prophets of Israel from the people of Israel was the difference between sight and vision. The people saw the temporal, and they could not get past what they were seeing. God granted the prophets vision of the eternal, which towered above and overshadowed the temporal. Where the people of Israel saw problems, Israel’s prophets saw God and His promises. Where the people saw allurements and temptations, the prophets saw God’s call to purity and covenant obedience. Where the people mistook the shadows for the eternal and abiding reality, the prophets saw beyond the shadows and saw straight into the truly real.” (Stephen J. Nichols, A Time For Confidence).
May we, like the prophets, see past the shadows to what is truly real and live accordingly.
And He who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” —Revelation 21:5
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