I cry aloud to God,
aloud to God, that he may hear me.
In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;
in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;
my soul refuses to be comforted.
I think of God, and I moan;
I meditate, and my spirit faints.
You keep my eyelids from closing;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
I slept soundly last night, ten hours in all.
But there have been -- will be -- times such as that described by the psalmist.
There have been -- will be -- times when I refuse to be comforted.
The kind of comfort referenced is interesting. In Hebrew it is נָחם or racham.
In scripture racham is found most frequently in Jeremiah. There God is relenting from punishment or humankind is repenting of wrongdoing. Comfort is a form of self-restraint.
Every third day I choose a picture to illustrate these meditations. Typically I take one of the key words and see what pictures are offered. Today's Google search mostly offered a range of pictures that represent the opposite of self-restraint. Self-restraint can be silly or even self-loathing (see above). But our culture's encouragement to self-indulgence may suggest why we are so often in need of comfort.
Concretely racham means to sigh or take a deep breath.
No comments:
Post a Comment