Great is Thy Faithfulness: A Hopeful Lament
Make no mistake: grieving is good, confusion is normal, admitting weakness is not a weakness, and struggling to believe is something God looks on with compassion.
In the introduction to the Book of Lamentations in my Bible, it says this: “The book of Lamentations is made up of five poems, each an expression of grief over the fall of Jerusalem. Like a eulogy at a funeral, these laments are intended to mourn a loss.” Although our circumstances today might be different from his, mourning loss is a common human experience.
When things are going well and have been for some time, we might struggle to understand and identify with a book like Lamentations. But on the days when we have been touched deeply by suffering, mourning, and loss, most of us will have no trouble entering into the experience of this writer or stepping into the familiar shoes of lament. It is through these experiences of suffering, mourning, and loss that we can come to a greater appreciation of God’s goodness and his faithfulness.
This might seem like a bit of a paradox, but I have found it to be true.
In Lamentations 3:16-24 (below is a combination of two translations - NLT and ESV), the writer tells of his recent experiences with God:
16 He has made me chew on gravel.
He has rolled me in the dust.
17 Peace has been stripped away,
and I have forgotten what happiness is.
18 I cry out, “My splendor is gone!
Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!”
19 The thought of my suffering and wanderings
is bitter beyond words.
20 I will never forget this awful time,
as I grieve over my loss.
21 Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
These are vivid word pictures, but the sentiment is not unfamiliar to those acquainted with this depth of sorrow. Grief is like chewing on gravel. Despair is like being rolled in the dust. The peace we once experienced when life was going along as expected - which was not that long ago - is suddenly stripped away and we can’t seem to remember what happiness feels like.
At times everything we hoped for seems to be lost. We all experience this in one way or another: the difficult relationship we hoped would someday be redeemed ends in a shipwreck of conflict; the job we hoped for never materializes; the spouse we expected to spend the rest of our lives with is suddenly gone. Our hope is sometimes drowning in a flood of despair.
And what often follows is a period like the one described here:
19 The thought of my suffering and wanderings
is bitter beyond words.
20 I will never forget this awful time,
as I grieve over my loss.
I have found that time dulls the blade of the pain, but some of the pain and certainly a scar remain as permanent fixtures in my psyche. Even though this is true, it does not give us the licence to allow our mourning (which, to be clear, is encouraged by God) to blossom into an all-consuming permanent despair. The writer of this lament had dwelt on the memories of his afflictions for so long that his soul was almost overwhelmed with despair.
It should not be so, and yet we might find ourselves in that state at some point. When life is harder than we expected; when the path before us is filled with rocks; when our best-laid plans go through the shredder - when any of these happen we are tempted to succumb to despair.
One of the great Reformers of the 16th century said that “since faith is the mother of hope, it follows that when anyone is overwhelmed with despair, faith is extinct.” These are difficult but truthful words, and we should know that he doesn’t use the word “extinct” in an absolute sense. But even if he did, we should remember to be thankful that God can bring what is extinct back to life.
And that is very good news - perhaps it is particularly good news today. Perhaps you once had faith but that faith seems to be gone. You can, today, do as the writer of this lament does next: he turns his focus away from his own trouble toward a faithful Creator, and he dares to hope.
21 Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:
Here is what he remembers. And this is what we should remind ourselves on a daily basis to remember:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
How can it be that hope and mourning dwell together within us at the same time? It can be because we are equipped by God to bear both simultaneously. It seems a great paradox, but I have known and experienced it as true: Sorrows come to test our faith, and if faithfully endured, the mourning over our sorrows moves us forward in our desire to become more like Jesus. And while this is happening we cling to the reality of God’s faithfulness, and this gives us hope
So life is an ongoing cycle of mourning and celebration, of lament and joy, and this is the normal rhythm of life for God’s people in this world.
God’s word shows us not only the highlights in the lives of Moses and David, of Esther and Ruth, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the others. It also shows us that these heroes of the faith experienced, as we do, hopelessness and despair and grief and lament. This is a true picture of the life of faith. Because every believer who ever lived who was concerned with God’s will above their own has experienced a similar rhythm in life: sorrow and joy, elation and heartbreak, brokenness and the peace of God.
It always has been and it always will be until Jesus returns, and then no more mourning, no crying, no sickness, no pain, no grief over losses, no despair to wrestle with. No cancer, no mental illness, no human trafficking, no poverty, no addictions. The coming of that day is an event in which we can place all our hope because that day will surely come!
Again from the introduction to the book of Lamentations in my Bible: “The purpose behind the book’s graphic depictions of sorrow and suffering was to produce hope in God whose compassion is ‘new every morning’ and whose faithfulness is great even to a people who have been condemned for their own unfaithfulness.”
What this means is that in the middle of our stuttering faithfulness to God, in our suffering, when we are tempted to look for someone to blame, God declares to us that he has done no wrong. And in every sorrow and trial and circumstance, this is true.
And if we’re honest, we struggle to believe that. When disaster strikes, when a spouse or child is lost, when the diagnosis is cancer, when it is one crisis after another, when over a very short time, the one we love is in good health and then in the throes of dying, when a heartache doesn’t seem to end. Just like we do, all of the great heroes of our faith struggled at times to see the goodness in God’s plans.
But all of the great heroes of our faith clung to the truth that we would all do well to continually remember, in the words of the prophet Isaiah (55:8-11 NLT):
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
“The rain and snow come down from the heavens
and stay on the ground to water the earth.
They cause the grain to grow,
producing seed for the farmer
and bread for the hungry.
It is the same with my word.
I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
It will accomplish all I want it to,
and it will prosper everywhere I send it.
This theme echoes through all of scripture, and we would not have time in this life to meditate deeply on every example, but the common thread in all of these examples is this: When we are tempted to despair we should set our minds on the goodness of God, and we should encourage each other to express gratitude for all his blessings, at all times and in all circumstances
There is a great poem that was later turned into a song that many of us are familiar with. When we finally get to the wonderful lyrics of this beautiful hymn based on these verses in the book of Lamentations, we understand that they are not just an opportunity to praise God for his faithfulness.
These words reflect a commitment to fight despair with, of all things, gratitude. To acknowledge our own lack of faith and to strive to cling to the one who is absolutely faithful. To admit that we are tempted to embrace weakness when strength is within reach. To recognize that we are prone to get lost in our despair when we should also choose to give praise. To confess that rather than often remembering God’s goodness to us, we instead often recall all of our own afflictions, rehearsing them in our minds as if these calamities, rather than God’s goodness and sovereignty over them are the point.
Make no mistake: grieving is good, confusion is normal, admitting our weaknesses is not a weakness, struggling to believe is something God looks on with compassion, and falling into despair is part of the rhythm of life.
But in all of this, let the words of this great hymn be a reminder to us to remember…
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee,
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not,
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!
God is faithful - even when we can’t understand how.
He is true to his word - even when his timeline doesn’t match our desires.
He is keeping all his promises - even when it seems they’ve been broken.
He is steady in his affection - even when we find it difficult to accept his love.
He is loyal to his children - even when we feel abandoned.
And he is constant in his love - even when we feel forsaken.
May we acknowledge this today and as we do, let us look forward to a brighter day, as the Psalmist did in Psalm 30:11-12 (NLT):
You, O Lord, have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,
that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!
May this be our experience as we journey through this day and the days to come. But let us not move too quickly from mourning to joyful dancing, for mourning is an essential part of the journey. Today we may have much to mourn, and we can rest in God’s promise that joy most definitely comes in the morning.
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