Lamenting in Hope

I want to take another shot at answering the question that we started off with last week: What is God like? This really is an important question to answer, and to answer well. Your understanding of God will greatly affect how you deal with life. This week we’re going to use another well-known bit of Old Testament to answer our question. This Scripture is something to hold on to when life gets hard. I’m hoping that a closer look at it will help us all to do that. Listen.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

There are some key words here that I’d like to take a closer look at: steadfast love, mercies, faithfulness.

‘Steadfast love.’ It is a sad fact that love has been redefined these days. And so, people ‘fall in love’ because of some emotions that they feel toward another person. But, all too often, we also find people ‘falling out of love’. The spark just isn’t there anymore. The feelings are gone. And so, they don’t love that other person any more. As a result, people today are used to the idea that love comes, and love goes. It isn’t a commitment any more, just a feeling, a feeling that might stay or might leave. The definition has been changed. Much of life, these days, has been redefined. In many ways, we are battling over the dictionary.

The true definition of love, as with everything else, is rooted in God. And God’s idea of love isn’t anything like what we’re seeing today. Once God has promised His love to someone, He will never withdraw it. And that’s why this Hebrew word is translated ‘steadfast love’. God has committed Himself to the one He loves. So, His love is something that a person can count on. There is no ‘falling out of love’ for God. His love is a constant in that person’s life.

Next we have ‘mercies’. This is all about God’s response to our neediness. You can include here God’s compassion that we looked at last week. He sees us struggling with something, and He stoops down to care for us. And it’s so good that He does this because we really are so very weak. How sad it would be if God were a cold and demanding deity, like the gods that so many worship today. What if He said to us, ‘Here are my standards. Meet them if you want something from Me. Those are My conditions and there are no exceptions.’ Who can meet God’s holy standards? But that’s not what our God is like? No, because of what Jesus has done for us, our God is full of mercy. As far as we are concerned, His mercies never come to an end. He will never quit caring about us and caring for us.

Then, there’s ‘faithfulness’. The question to ask here is, ‘Faithfulness to what?’ And the answer is that He is faithful to all His promises. This, in fact, is the basis for those two other key words, steadfast love and mercies. God has made promises to us. And unlike us and our promises, He always keeps His. Always.

So, what is God like? These key words, steadfast love, mercies, faithfulness, go a long way toward answering that question. And as we grow in our understanding of Him in terms of these three qualities we can understand why the Scriptures describe Him as a rock. That really is what He is for us. He is our rock, the source of our stability. Others who do not know Him stand on shifting sand that provides no sure footing. Sooner or later, their lives will show that, as they fall apart. But not us. Our footing is sure.

So, we’ve looked at a couple of verses, and I hope with some benefit. But it’s never good to look at a sentence or two apart from its context. And these sentences do have a context. Understanding that context will add to our appreciation of what we’ve already seen. So, what I’m going to do now is read what leads up to that bit of Scripture.

I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; ​he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; ​he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; ​he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked. He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; ​he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; ​he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; ​I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. ​He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; ​so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:1-23

The author is reflecting on his situation, and it doesn’t sound good. He is overwhelmed by his troubles. He is in darkness without light. His flesh and skin are wasting away. He is without peace. Happiness is a distant memory. And he cannot escape. Try to imagine what that must have felt like.

What is going on? There is a clue when he writes,

He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;

Who is this ‘he’? There is no doubt about this ‘he’ when our author writes,

though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;

The ‘he’ is God. It is God who has brought this person into such troubles. It is God who is making life horrible for him.

Now, seeing this raises a question that begs for an answer. Is this man right about the source of his problems? Does God actually do this sort of thing to people? And the answer is a clear, ‘Yes’. And this Scripture is just one example of many where God acts in this way.

But why? Why would God do this sort of thing? There are several answers to this. Sometimes, it’s about punishment. This is something that tends to be forgotten these days. God does punish people. Think about it. There is a hell. But not all punishment is reserved for later.

But this isn’t what’s going on with the person who wrote what we’ve been reading. He’s no rebel against God and His ways. He’s a believer. So, why would God make this person’s life so hard, even if only for a time?

It is amazing what you can see with utter clarity when the good things of life are stripped away. You can see how well you respond to life when the pleasant props are all gone. That’s closer to the real you. You can also see much more clearly how dependent you are on your God. You can experience a small taste of hell and thus appreciate the heaven that awaits. And you can become more compassionate toward those who are without Jesus and presently on their way to that hell. A desire to see them repent and believe grows. God sometimes brings these hard things into a person’s life so that through what’s happening, through the pain that he suffers, the kingdom will grow. It will grow in depth within him, and it will spread to others around him.

Now, seeing what our author was suffering, how bleak life really was, how he responds is so much more potent. So, let me read our original text again, with just a little more context.

Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ​“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” Lamentations 3.19-24

Ah, what powerful words of hope and trust.

Now, what are you to do with all of this? Well, here’s one thing you can do. You can take these words, the key words and their larger context, and insert them into a different time and place. Apply them to Jesus on the Cross. Has there ever been a more horrible situation? The physical pain must have been tremendous. But others had been crucified and felt the same awful pain. However, no one also experienced the wrath of God for the sins of an untold number of sinners. The opening words of our chapter describe Jesus’ situation well.

I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. Lamentations 3:1-3

Jesus endured the wrath of God on that Cross. But note how Jesus responded to what was going on. He didn’t quote those comforting words about God’s steadfast love, His mercies and His faithfulness. But He did say this.

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit! Luke 23:46

I think that we can say that these words, words of hope and trust, are the equivalent to the words of hope and trust that we’ve been looking at. Lamentations 3 describes Jesus. It helps us to understand Him better.

But consider this. If they describe Jesus, then they are also to describe us. We are disciples of Jesus. That means that He is our example. He shows us how we are to live, especially as we encounter the evil God sends our way. He shows us how to respond to the pains we feel in this life. Words of hope and trust.

It’s a tall order to imitate Jesus. But it does no good to try to scale it down to something more manageable. That wouldn’t be true to the Gospel. Instead, a prayer that I resort to from time to time fits here.

Father, I am Your servant. Whatever You want me to do is fine with me. Just give me the grace to do it.

That’s the prayer of a disciple. It’s all about submission to the Father. We are His servants. We can place no limitations on what that means, on how He might use us. So, it just might include dealing with what the author of Lamentations dealt with. And if you know the backstory to Lamentations you can see that that might not be an entirely unlikely scenario. It’s good to pray that prayer of a disciple, ‘I am Your servant’, from time to time. He doesn’t need the reminder, but we do.

But the rest of that prayer is also important. While imitating Jesus is our calling, that doesn’t mean that it is something that we can easily do. Fighting against our perennial enemies - the world, the flesh and the devil - makes progress in this calling hard. But there is grace. Our God is a God who loves to give the gift of His grace to His children so that we can live well for Him. So, we should feel free to ask Him for more of His grace so that we would have what we need.

It seems to me that hard times are coming for us. And that is simply because we are Christians living in a culture that is falling apart. Experiencing some of the hardships that we’ve looked at this morning is a real possibility for us. So, prepare for that possibility by considering these words of hope and trust from Lamentations 3.