Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
not been restored?”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, June 18, 2025
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Jeremiah feels our pain. So does God. They’re not just standing on the sidelines haranguing us for our stupidity and evil. They recognize the pain we are causing ourselves and our neighbors, and they grieve for us and with us. Despite all that is going on around us we have to know that God is holding us in her loving arms, encouraging us to choose the good, like a mother with a wayward toddler.
We, also, need to be in touch with our pain and others’ pain. When we see the lives of our neighbors being destroyed by the actions of the government we elected, we are called to grieve and to turn that grief into action on their behalf. Of course we can’t let it so debilitate us that we are driven to cocoon in our own lives, putting on blinders and noise-canceling headphones lest we sink into despair. This is a time for all of us to seek community, to grieve together and to act together. None of us can do anything alone. And we can remember that, in fact, we are never alone. God is in and through and around and with us in all things, and will show up in ways we might not be able to imagine.
How do I manage my grief over the evils of the world? How do I find balance between acknowledging pain and being overwhelmed by it?
