“22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
23 Great is his faithfulness;
His mercies begin afresh each morning.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in Him!”
25 The Lord is good to those who depend on Him,
to those who search for Him.
26 So it is good to wait quietly
for salvation from the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:22-6)
Lamentations was authored by Jeremiah, also known as the Weeping Prophet. One of the major prophets, Jeremiah dedicated his ministry to telling the Jews that they’d sinned and God was not happy. They had brought on God’s rightful discipline, but they could and should repent and turn to God. They didn’t listen and were captured and enslaved by the Babylonians. Jeremiah had a lot to grieve over and following the fated captivity he penned Lamentations, a book of poetry expressing the depths of his grief over his people. The clue’s in the name after all. Odd then that one of the most positive, quoted verses is Lamentations 3:23: “Great is His faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh every morning.”
In a pit of absolute darkness, Jeremiah found light. Women and children were dying of starvation around him, his King in whom the people had boasted invincibility under had had his eyes gouged out and been led away by the Babylonians. Wherever Jews seemed to escape to, mountains or wilderness, they would be found and tortured (4:19). God distanced himself from the people of Israel: “You have covered yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through” (3:44). If ever there was a time where you’d be trying to pray to God, it was going to be now and He’d taken a leave of absence! Sometimes it may feel that God isn’t listening. Look at Job, you could be the most pious of people when things are going right for you, when you experience success, but what happens when it is taken from you? Does that not say more of you? Life on this planet is but a test, a trial run, if in the face of the destruction that Jeremiah was witnessinng he instructed the jews to “lift [their] hearts and… hands to God in heaven” (3:41), what do you think I’m going to advise you to do?
“Jerusalem’s streets, once bustling with people, are now silent. Like a widow broken with grief, she sits alone in her mourning. Once the queen of nations, she is now a slave… Little children and tiny babies are fainting and dying in the streets” (1:1, 2:11). I implore you to read the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah does not hold back on presenting heart-rendering images of a truly broken people. Imagine the photos you see of the Great Depression, Germany after both world wars, “Tenderhearted women have cooked their own children and eaten them in order to survive the siege” (4:10). Get the picture? And yet Jeremiah did not become wholly desolate because of God’s very nature.
“For The Lord does not abandon anyone forever. Though He brings grief, He also shows compassion according to the greatness of His unfailing love” (3:31-2).
If we know God to be a God of justice, then we know that the Jews punishment was not callous, cruel or sadistic, but deserved. In the face of such serious, necessary destruction as a penalty, God is still there for the Jews. Even for those who deserved such a penalty He would not abandon them forever ! There are people we find hard to forgive: parents, old partners, friends, aspire to love like God whose love is UNFAILING. God chastised the people, but that was it, it was purposeful discipline that they may improve. They didn’t listen to the prophets He sent, ever heard a parent say “who doesn’t listen must feel?” Just saying. It doesn’t mean your parents don’t love you, they just want better for you. God is great and flawless, His love and His compassion far greater than that of a parent.
And that’s why Lamentations 3:23 is so amazing. Surrounded by rightful condemnation, God gifts the sorrowful afflicted with mercy. He displays that nothing is too big for Him to forgive, the only true obstacle between us and God – is us. A lot of people try to play down stories of His anger in the Old Testament, “oh you know it was the olden days, and the new law of grace came, and let’s just look at that bit.” As a Christian you believe that God is eternal, that He is loving but also just. Firstly, God doesn’t need you to explain away bits of the Bible to make Him palatable. Secondly, don’t abandon your knowledge of His qualities when you read such stories. God’s anger was never unjust or cruel, it goes against His very nature, in the midst of destruction God is love always and forever. And following such a tale, Jeremiah stresses, with knowledgeable hope and confidence, that “The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.”
God bless and keep you always x
Working Towards Calvary 