“This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:21-23, KJV
MONDAY MORNING MANNA
“Between A Rock and A Hard Place”
Brothers and Sisters let my declare to you that America has found herself between a rock and a hard place! To be between a rock and a hard place is an age old idiom spoken to define being faced with two unpleasant, dangerous and risky alternatives where the avoidance of one ensures that you will encounter the other. As you are aware though the racial inequities of the moment have dominated the news cycle for the past three weeks we cannot forget that prior to the present predicament we were already inundated with worldwide pandemonium. What must not be lost upon us is the fact that since March 15th the country initiated a shutdown which has lasted for nearly four months now and as of yesterday over seven million people worldwide have had confirmed cases of Covid 19. Of those seven million cases nearly half a million people have lost their lives. More specific to us is that here in the Mississippi we have endured our own pains in response to Covid-19 because as of yesterday over 19,000 cases have been confirmed and 881 deaths have occurred several of which have been amongst inmate populations in the multiplicity of penal institutions across the state. Though efforts have been made to reopen the state and subsequently the prisons allowing inmate populations to enjoy the freedom of mobility the truth is that doing so has the potential of placing a myriad of people “between a rock and a hard place.” No person wishes to be sheltered inside their homes or cells and at the time of this writing a host of my preacher friends complain that their parishioners are tired of missing their in person services being forced to sit at home viewing them but in the same manner no Pastor, Parent or Prison Warden wants to jeopardize the lives of even one of the people entrusted to them by allowing in person gatherings. We are in a sense in jeopardy if we do and simultaneously in jeopardy if we don’t! “It’s like being between a rock and a hard place.”
Along the same line of thought, today marks 20th day since the untimely murder of the now infamous George Floyd that took place due to extreme policing measures taken by former officer Derek Chauvin of the Minnesota police department. As you are aware, in the aftermath thousands upon thousands of citizens across the globe have taken to the streets in protest utterly placing themselves “between a rock and a hard place” because should protestors opt to do nothing their silence consents to further over-policing and martyrdom yet if they continue to line the streets with other protestors then they become subject to the Coronavirus. By all accounts each group is in between a rock and a hard place.
The questions on the floor today are how are we to feel? What are we to do? And what do we say when we’re in between a rock and a hard place? Brothers and Sisters in response to the hard places of which we are finding ourselves today it’s up to us rather we choose the rock of hope or the hard place of hate as both of them have their own epistemic consequences. Thus, with all that’s been said this morning let me suggest to you what the Spirit of God ushered into my heart just yesterday. He said to me “Son, whenever you find yourself between a rock and a hard place always chose the rock of hope because hope never maketh ashamed.”
Today’s scriptural reference is a poem of lament written by Jeremiah the Prophet from which we can find three hard responses, actions and feelings that will serve us best while between this rock and hardened place. At the time of this text the children of Israel have made it to the Promised Land and have now been there for over 500 years. In fact, for the past 586 years they have been enjoying the beautiful land flowing with milk and honey that had been promised to Abraham. In the past 586 years they have built houses, operated businesses and to their credit built the most beautifully erected church to date. Over the years that church known as Solomon’s Temple had gone from a place where they went in and worshipped and read the Bible into a place that they just stood outside of, took pictures and merely just held the Bible. For years and years they had fallen into sin and this passage chronicles the judgment of God that eventually followed. Specifically, in the summer of 586BC, God allowed the wicked nation of Babylonia to destroy Jerusalem, her capital city Judah and the infamous Temple of Solomon.
In response the Prophet Jeremiah explains in detail what this invasion by the Babylonians looked like. He writes of overwhelming starvation, demonstrative death and an utter horror that commanded the moment. In verses 1-20 Jeremiah seems to struggle with what he should say; how he should feel and what he should do while between this proverbial rock and hard place. Jeremiah’s first decision is that of hating where he is and what God is allowing to occur.
Beginning at verse thirteen his thoughts are that God has an arrow that He is shooting into the nation. In verse fifteen he says that its God who has has filled him with bitterness, and has made him drink what we would call clorox. In verse sixteen Jeremiah says that this feels like God is breaking his teeth with gravel stones and covering him with ashes. In verse eighteen he says “my hope is no more in the Lord and in verse twenty Jeremiah says “My soul remembers everything that I’ve been through as well as, everything I’m going through as these people destroy our cities and I hate it! It’s good that the text turns however in verse twenty four where Jeremiah moves away from how he feels and begins to say what his soul is leading him to say which leads us to what our first response should be when we find ourselves in between a rock and a hard place.
The First response of a person in between a rock and a hard place should be:
I Will Hope in Him
In verse twenty four when Jeremiah says “The Lord is my portion” or territory what he means is that though I hate everything happening around me my hope is in the Lord because He is my territory. What the prophet is suggesting is that even though I may be seemingly losing everything and may soon find myself in some distant land the truth is that because the Lord is my territory He will be with me!
The Second response of a person in between a rock and a hard place should be:
I Will Wait for Him
In verse twenty five Jeremiah says “The Lord is good unto them that wait for him” We must wait and trust that God is moving. In Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s famous sermon preached at Mount Pisgah M.B. Church in 1967, entitled “Why Jesus Called A Man a Fool”, King used the phrase, “I see the lightning flashing and I hear the thunder roar.” Perhaps by this he meant to indicate the mounting steam that the Civil Rights Movement was enjoying as at that time major legislation regarding voting rights was passed or perhaps King was just quoting a lyric from the famous hymn Never Alone. Regardless of his source the idea he advanced was that things were beginning to improve. You see my friend lightning flashes whenever something positive hits something negative and thunder rolls when something hot hits something cold. Likewise, across the globe today the hard place of hate is hitting the positive place of hope; the cold hearts of many has begun to hit the warm hearts of love; the hard place of injustice has begun to hit the positive place of unity and the coldness of racism is being challenged by the warmth of human dignity. While all of that is true our most important task today is simply to wait being reminded that according to Jeremiah, ‘the Lord is good to those who wait for Him.”
Lastly, the third response of a person between a rock and a hard place should be to:
Seek Him
In this passage not only does Jeremiah tell us to hope in Him and wait for Him but he also tells us that there is something we can do while we wait. Specifically, while we hope in Him and wait for Him, according to verse twenty five Jeremiah says we must also Seek Him because “The Lord is good to the soul that seeketh him.” To seek the Lord is similar to playing hide and go seek with our small kids. In so doing, not one of us gets so far away that the child can’t find us nor, do we go so far out of their purview that we can’t see them. Just The other day I played hide and seek with my own baby and I sat in the middle of the floor with a blanket over my head and with one eye watching her the whole time. When she began to go in the wrong direction I started calling her name until she turned around and came to me.
Beloved, God is not hiding from you, He is in plain sight just as He has always been but He sometimes has to use circumstances we may hate at the time in order to get our attention. Explanative perhaps Covid-19, the murder of George Floyd, the worldwide lockdown, economy shutdown and social unrest is simply Gods way of getting our attention! Regardless, whether it is our Not, todays text is certainly a call through which God is saying to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah that even in the midst of this “rock and hardened place”, Dont Lose Hope because I’m good to those who have hope, to those who wait and to those who seek me! At the beginning of this text Jeremiah was hating his predicament but by the end of the text Jeremiah is expressing hope in the Lord. You may ask what changed? The change occurs in
verse twenty one where Jeremiah writes “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.”
What Jeremiah recalls to his mind is what he states in verse twenty two which is that it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. In other words, Jeremiah says even though my city has been destroyed, my church has been burned to the ground and I’m being carried away as a slave still I have to thank God that at least I’m still alive! Also, its helpful to note that the word for compassion that Jeremiah uses is the word (ra·cha·mav) which comes from the root word (rechem) which actually means “the womb” As you are aware to be in the womb means to be on the way out from the confines of a mothers belly into the abyss called the world.
I pray that you find encouragement today in the fact that though things may not be as you would prefer them at the present time at least you’re still living and so long as you’ve got hope, wait a little while longer and continue to seek the Lord you too are coming out because His compassions never fail. In fact, they are renewed every day for Great is His Faithfulness! My appeal to you today is that if you are in between a rock and a hard place in any area of your life it may be helpful to Hope in Him, to Wait For Him and to Seek Him! Right now I dare you to invite Jesus into your heart and begin to experience His goodness right now for He is good to those who hope, wait and seek Him!
Dr A. Darrell Barlow