Jeremiah’s Hope
Wednesday, April 15
Jeremiah’s Hope
Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing: The Lord’s unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. Lamentations 3:21-23
Lamentations is Jeremiah’s book of weeping for the calamities that have happened to his country and his people. But tucked in there is encouragement for us today, right now as we are dealing with a national pandemic.
Jeremiah tells us this story somewhere else – how he was taken and lowered on ropes down into a deep pit where he sank right up to his armpits in the mud at the bottom. This is the ‘public’ account of what happened and the rescue. But in Lamentations, Jeremiah is letting out his feelings about the experience. This is terror, trauma and torture. We’re hearing about the soldiers who tossed stones down the well on top of him, and how Jeremiah, totally trapped, nearly drowned.
We are often like Jeremiah: we have a ‘public’ account of what’s happening to us. When people ask how things are we might answer, “Well, things aren’t too good at the moment”, end of conversation. Let it not be so! In that same breathe let us speak of the goodness of God. The keeping power of God, which holds you up even when life is trying to bring you down.
This is me today. In that place where no-one else sees, I may feel overwhelmed by trauma and fear of the unknown future, sitting in a pit. That’s just where these verses come in: ‘But in my mind I keep returning to something that gives me hope’. In my mind there is a spark of hope that comes from my relationship with God.
Jeremiah’s raw honesty about this experience means a lot to me. God has seen me and my family through times so bad I wondered whether they would ever come to an end. It took time – and it often does – and it needed God to be there ‘every morning’ for me. But God’s faithfulness and His love never come to an end.
Today in these deep moments, day by day we can sing and look to God, who’s there day after day after day for us, every morning, with hope.
Prayer for today: Thank You, God, that You’re there every morning, day after day for me, with Your love and Your faithfulness. I welcome You today! Amen.