“But for hope, the heart would break.”

These words greeted me this morning as I opened my eyes just a bit after 4 am.  Beset I am with multiple issues beyond my control.  There is travel I would like to be able to do.   Travel that because of the physical constraints of age, the cost, and the state of our world seems impossible.  This, after convincing myself how easy it was going to be.  And, there are multiple other issues looming, larger possibly at 4am than they would be later in the day.

But the travel thing was a killer.  Not just because what I was pretty sure that what I though should happen was not going to.  Plus, it also involved several passwords needing to be reset and every app does it a bit differently, and I was working with at least two “smart” devices, and I have, admittedly a one track mind.   It’s a test of one’s sanity, and I was failing.

Most of yesterday, a holiday to make it worse, was spent manipulating keyboards on the multiple devices as I tried to force my will on various airlines and travel apps.  Willing them to take me where I wanted to go, when I wanted to go, and how I wanted to go.  But impersonal screens coldly responded only with information that did not work for me. 

There were even a few phone calls, always after the the painstaking search for the phone numbers that are always hidden in all airline websites, purposely I’m sure so that they won’t have to actually interact with you in person.  They prefer letting the impersonal bits and bytes of the new universal language present you with options that were never going to work for you anyway.

I’m one who can, will, and has invested inordinate amounts of time in processes which, if there’s a chance of getting my desired result, I’m OK with.  Finally, after several hours, past lunch even, after multiple keyboard manipulations and  a few phone calls, it was confirmed that what I knew had in fact actually happened only a few days before was no longer possible.

It was upsetting. 

I’m normally an upbeat guy, but this exercise in futility was my undoing.  It started my downhill spiral, not something I often have to deal with.  Soon nothing was right, everything was bad, and quickly turning worse.  The darkness of 4 in the morning only added speed to my downward spiral.

Then a bit later I halfheartedly turned to my daily reading in the book of Lamentations.  I read somewhere in the Bible almost every day with my friend Matthew Henry the renown 17^th century English Bible commentator.  Matthew provides unique insight into the words of Scripture.  His scholarly thoughts from the sixteen-hundreds are untainted by the world we see spiraling out of control around us.  He and I have read many books of the Bible together.  Somehow sometime back in the past we had ended up in Lamentations.

Lamentations is not a good place to go for anyone needing a lift or a bit of cheer.  It is the story of Jerusalem’s destruction in 586-587 BC.  Israel, God’s chosen people had prospered following the directions God, through various prophets had given them.  But the people strayed.  God through the the prophets had told them many times and in many places what would happen if they chose to disobey his directives.  Words, like siege, flames, ruin, and destruction are scattered through the desription

They disobeyed, and judgment came in the form of Babylon and captivity (Daniel among them).  Lamentation is a compilation of what could be the news summaries of the day,

It’s not good, depressing in fact.

This is not a good place to be for someone like myself, at 4 am with circumstances greasing my downward spiral.

But, the first words I saw were Matthew’s.  He had been graphically describing what was happening as Jerusalem was destroyed, but then he said;  “But for hope, the heart would break.”

These words are from his commentary on Chapter 3.  Finally some rays of hope in the midst of the destruction of the glorious city.

And I needed that as well.  “But for hope, the heart would break.”  No ancient capital city was being destroyed around me, but that’s how I felt.  “But for hope,” Matthew said.  And, he goes on give reasons for the hope.   Let’s  not forget that.  Hope is a very valuable thing.

In the early dawning, I got my walking shoes on, grabbed my Nordic Poles and headed out in the cool morning for my 1.5 on Blackmer Municipal Golf Course out back.  I was able to see the sun start to peak over the Eastern horizon.

I realized as I had noted the other morning that there is a fixed order, God’s in control of it, and not me.  If my friend Matthew sees hope in the total destruction of Jerusalem, maybe I should look a bit deeper.

Have a great day