Readings for today: Lamentations 1:1-3:36
Reading Lamentations is hard work. It’s hard to enter into the pain and heartbreak Jeremiah feels as he watches his nation be razed to the ground. All he holds dear vanishes in a moment. His friends are struck down by the enemy. Those who are left face mass starvation and forced deportation. They are beset on every side. There is nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. There is no peace. No security. Everything they once counted on is now gone. We can’t even begin to imagine what it must feel like. Thankfully, we’ve never had to face such things in America. But I’ve spent time with those who have. I’ve visited camps where internally displaced people live who’ve lost everything due to war and conflict and violence. The conditions they live in are brutal. The challenges they face everyday are overwhelming. The pain they go through is unbearable. Their suffering is immense. I have wept with them. Prayed with them. Done what little I can to help them. Mostly, I’ve been completely at a loss to know what to do.
Despair is hard to handle. It overwhelms the senses. It fills us with anxiety and fear. It paralyzes us. We can’t see a way forward. We can’t think straight. It leaves us feeling helpless and hopeless and utterly lost and alone. Jeremiah is expressing all these feelings and more as he writes his lament for Jerusalem and his people. He is not writing as an impartial observer. He is not concerned with being objective. He is feeling everything they are feeling. He is experiencing everything they are experiencing. His struggle with despair is just as real. But Jeremiah has one thing many of his people do not. He has faith. He trusts in the Lord. He takes his despair at all he sees and experiences to God and lays it as His feet. Listen again as he describes it in his own words…
“I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed. I remember it all—oh, how well I remember— the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there’s one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left. God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. It’s a good thing when you’re young to stick it out through the hard times. When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face. The “worst” is never the worst. Why? Because the Master won’t ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way.” (Lamentations 3:19-33 MSG)
What a powerful testimony and what a great reminder. On some level, I imagine all of us know what it’s like to hit rock bottom. All of us have faced trouble in our lives. All of us have tasted the ashes. Swallowed the poison. Felt utterly lost and alone on some level. What I’ve discovered in my own life is that’s where God does His best work. When I came to the end of myself in 2009, I found God waiting for me there. When things were at their darkest and I had nothing left and nowhere to turn, God was with me. His loyal love did not run out. His merciful love never dried up. His faithfulness was great and transcended my broken condition. In my despair, I surrendered to Him. I entered the silence. I bowed my head in prayer. I stopped striving and trying so hard. I learned to wait. And to face my fears head on. What I discovered is the worst is never the worst because God is faithful. He will deliver those who turn to Him.
Readings for tomorrow: Lamentations 3:37-5:22