Lamentations 5:1-4 English Standard Version
Restore Us to Yourself, O Lord
1 Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace!
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.
3 We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.
4 We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought.
We left off yesterday speaking about personal perspective. This led me to search the scriptures for something that is personal to each of us in different ways. How that can happen is in the issues of the life we each have lived and what has befallen us. It is different for each of us.
Disgrace is the lament of the author but not the only emotional reaction to life events. It is up to us to confess how we feel about the events of life that have shaped our histories and perspectives. It is personal and while we may find others with the same experience we should be aware that others might lament in different ways and draw their own conclusions.
What should be common for all of us is the restoration of relationship with our God. In this we will find it is a matter of personal perspective because we are all coming from a different place, even if we are neighbors.
2 Corinthians 5:17-19 English Standard Version (ESV)
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Our past does not dictate our future, no matter what has happened to us and how we feel about it.
Our personal perspective is the road we take to come to the same place, unity in faith in Christ.