Lamentations 4:1-6. A lamentation on what will become of Zion because they have turned from God. Their gold has grown dim; their precious sons, worth more than their weight in gold, are treated as earthen pots - the work of human hands to be used and discarded. Even jackals give of themselves to feed and care for their young, but Zion has become cruel - its infants go thirsty, its children beg for food, but no one gives it to them. So the chastisement of God's chosen people will be greater than that of Sodom. Sodom was overthrown in a terrible moment of fire and destruction. Zion, instead, will suffer a long, slow, painful descent of hunger and deprivation. "Those who feasted on dainties will perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple lie on ash heaps."

I am a child of my culture, so I can only speak to what I know. I hope and pray that things are different elsewhere, but I totally see this as being us right now. We are headed for this long, slow, painful descent - and I can see how we deserve it - we have become cruel! As a culture, we have been convinced of our own importance - that "I" and my comfort, success, happiness, take precedence over everything else. Children are treated as our creations, not God's, to be "planned," and accepted or discarded at our pleasure. We have made ourselves our own gods, and we are not loving gods, except for our self-love. We satisfy our every whim, and relieve our every discomfort, at the expense of our own children, others, our world, and the future. We use our children as validation for ourselves, and our own twisted view of reality - think of the horror of performing "gender reassignment" surgery on a minor! When someone tries to warn us of the consequences of our selfishness and cruelty, we silence them, ban them from the public square!

Our denial of the truth, unwillingness to think even a moment into the future, and total rejection of the value of suffering for the sake of future generations will, I am very much afraid, cause our downfall, and I can't say we don't deserve it. Like Zion, we have been blessed with so much, so our destruction will be more painful - because we are not only sinful, as Sodom was, but we know better, and we are cruel in our sin.

OK, so that sounds horrible, and I really do feel that this country is in the beginning stages of this suffering. But then I hear or see things, and I think there is hope. Maybe most of us are not like this, and the cruel people are just the loud and powerful ones. Maybe most people are living moral lives, and trying, in their own quiet ways, to reject the lies and keep the truth alive. (Abortion rates are falling, despite the pussy-hatted Women's Marchers!) I know, from personal experience, that good people are afraid to speak the truth. Maybe it is really most people who are good, but they are just drowned out by the evil of our political and cultural leaders. The devil is certainly being allowed free rein among them, and he knows how to lie and drown out the good.

I hope this is true. If it is, we still have a chance to turn this thing around, but even if not, remember that God got the good people out of Sodom (all one family of them!) before the destruction. He will protect those who seek refuge in him, even in times of just punishment.