Lamentations 3:22-33 - by Don Neuendorf
Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed...
Jeremiah has been called "The Weeping Prophet." How would you like that for a nickname? But he had a lot to weep about. He witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem twice - once in prophecy and once in person. He saw the terrible consequences of rebellion against God when the city of Jerusalem was beseiged, the people starved and reduced to cannibalism, the nation overthrown, the king blinded and taken away along with most of the population in chains.
The book is called, in our English translations, "Lamentations." Outcries. Weeping. In the Hebrew it is called 'ekah, "How..." A poignant beginning that expresses the yearning for an understanding of these tragedies.
And yet the Gospel is here too. It begins at last, after pages of pain, in chapter 3 verse 21. "Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope..."
What do you "call to mind" when you are in despair?...
Lots of people have talked to me about what they call to mind when bad things happen to them. Most of them report thinking of how much worse it could be. They see others in the same hospital who are much worse off than they, and they're grateful. But that's an odd kind of gratitude if you think about it.
Perhaps what they mean is this: that they deserve much worse from God (Lam.3:39), but he has been good to them only to allow them their current suffering.
But Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, goes much further. It would be hard to imagine much worse than the horrors he saw. But he says, "Because of God's great love we are not consumed..." That is, they were not utterly destroyed. (So far he sounds like you, but then he goes on...) "for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."
Jeremiah says that it is GOOD to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is a blessing to bear a heavy burden for a time, even "to bury [our] face in the dust" so that we will learn from the Lord about his faithfulness. "For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men."
It is not that things could be much worse. It is that God, our loving and compassionate Father, will make things much better.