09/25/2019
1. Examining Our Ways (Lamentations 3:40a)
Jeremiah calls on us to "search and try our ways" (KJV), or as the ESV puts it rather accurately: "test and examine our ways."
"Ways" is the plural of the Hebrew noun derek, "way, path, road," here used metaphorically, relating to our actions and behavior. We can say that we love Jesus, but our actions prove out whether this is true or not. We humans are very good at rationalization. We often hide the truth from ourselves, so we can go blissfully on. We avoid going to the doctor for fear he or she might give us bad news. You know how this works.
So Jeremiah calls us to "search," "test," "examine" our ways. The Hebrew verb is ḥāpaś, "search, search out," to search out our ways in the sense of testing them to see if they have integrity.[2] We're to put our patterns and habits under a microscope. What in the world are we actually doing? Then Jeremiah uses a nearly synonymous verb, "try," "examine," "test," ḥāqar, "search, investigate, examine," connoting a diligent, difficult probing.[3] David asks God to do this probing, this "fearless moral inventory" (in the words of the 12 Step Program).
"Search me (ḥāqar), O God, and know my heart!
Try[4] me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous[5] way (derek) in me,
and lead me in the way (derek) everlasting!" (Psalm 139:23-24)
There's a grievous path of self-deception and self-righteousness that ends in sorrow, and there is a God-centered way of life that lasts forever.
Our sin may not be some deep moral failing -- though it may be. It could just as well be prayerlessness and hollow worship by rote. Pause and consider, say Jeremiah and David, that you're on the right path. And if you are not, now is the time to make a course correction.
Prayerfully submitted,
Min Artramease Marshall
