Worse to Come?
Lightening, they say, never strikes twice in the same place. But it can sometimes get close, and the fear that it might can be with you for a long time afterwards. No wonder these people are frightened, nor are they helped by the fact that having had a taste of what it is like (vv 1-2) all these verses just build up the drama. Things might indeed get worse before they get better.
Is that fair, or might this poet be suffering from imagination overload. Listen to what he says. Fire is now behind as well as in front and the mention of Eden serves only to heighten the disaster (v 3). Locusts have now become horses with chariots lined up for battle (vv 4-5). They are highly organised and motivated (vv 6-9). To the devastation of the earth we add the sun and the moon (v 10), and even when God himself is seen out there in front leading the troops it is apparently not immediately clear to everyone whose troops he is leading (v 11). By now, as if the reality were not bad enough, imagination combined with fear have contrived to make it ten times worse.
Then, just as the human body faints under extreme physical stress, so the human spirit capitulates when what it confronts is too terrible to contemplate. In the depths, we have to ‘let be’ and leave everything to God (v 11). Therein lies our hope. This is the moment he (and we) have been waiting for. Until now we have been frustrating him. We need to give him a chance. When things are bleak, and we know it, is his opportunity. When the waters are so deep that we can’t paddle, with neither the skill nor the stamina to swim, all we can do is to relax and float — and God seems to say, ‘I’ll see you don’t drown’ (vv 12-13).
Unfortunately, too often, we resist, like a tired child fighting against going to sleep, never realising that surrender may be the gateway to a new beginning.