Part 1- Hope

Lamentations 3:21-26

21  This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.

22  Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.

23  They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

24  “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

25  The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.

26  It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.

Lamentations is a book of grief and anguish. It is about the anguish of a man who had done all He could to warn God’s people against coming judgment, but to no avail. They had not listened to him. By not listening to him, they in turn were not listening to God. Jeremiah was called by God to warn the people. He was given a job to do and I’m sure he felt like he had failed. These verses in the middle of the book of Lamentations are so beautiful and comforting, especially considering what the author, Jeremiah, was going through during this time in history. Most of the book of Lamentations is very sad and you can tell that Jeremiah is as depressed as he can be throughout it. He had tried so hard to warn God’s people of His coming judgment if they didn’t repent and turn back to Him…….and they didn’t. This led to God bringing judgment on the city of Jerusalem by allowing its destruction. Many were killed and the ones who lived were carried away into Babylonian captivity. Jeremiah laments throughout the whole book. The word lamentation means the passionate expression of grief or sorrow. It is expressing grief, not holding it inside in the least. However, we see some light in the darkness in these verses. We see a glimpse of the future for God’s people in these verses and we know that God did preserve His people through all the turmoil they brought on themselves. Through all the ups and downs of God’s chosen people, the Israelites, God kept His promises to them and showed mercy on them when they repented. God had a plan for His Son to be born from this line of people at the time of His perfect will. He did this so that all people everywhere could have the opportunity to be saved. This time in biblical history is dark, but Jeremiah had not lost his faith that God would make a way for His people. Let’s look at Jeremiah’s words in the above verses and see how we can relate these to our lives today. 

Imagine a dark room with no light at all, so dark that we can’t see our hand in front of our face. Then we light a candle with this tiny flame. It’s tiny, but it allows us to see. This is what our life may feel like sometimes when we go through hard times. Everyone’s hard times are different. Each one of us knows what this feels like in one way or another. At the time, it seems like nothing will ever get better. Time goes by so slowly in those moments. Then…….we decide to get on our knees in prayer, and open God’s word and suddenly we have some hope……some light, like a candle in a dark room. Once Jeremiah had gotten through some grief and possibly even some anger over all that had taken place, we see him finding that little bit of hope, that light in all that darkness. These verses give me so much hope. Hope in his Creator kept him from giving up. That same hope keeps us from giving up. Remember my last post, AT HIS FEET? Because of our hope in Christ, we can lay everything at His feet.

In verse 21, after Jeremiah had been in darkness and had wept and lamented for a time, he allowed God to shed some light on the situation and give him some hope. It is like he couldn’t see any hope for a time. He was going through a grieving process so to speak. Jeremiah was human just like us. We do the same thing. Sometimes something is so traumatic/upsetting/annoying, whatever the emotion is, that it brings on a reaction so suddenly that we can’t even get our thoughts together to turn to God in that moment. But when we finally get to where we can process, we turn to God and He begins the healing process. Now I have no idea what Jeremiah’s physical appearance was, but I can picture him raising his eyes to heaven in the midst of all this grief and thinking, but………..”This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.” He finds hope in God. This is what we as Christians have to always remember. In all our turmoil, whatever it is, God is with us with the candle burning, with our hope for the future when we are ready to see it. Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us what God’s thoughts were toward his people and what they are toward us today, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Does this sound like God wants bad things to happen to us? Of course he doesn’t. Sometimes others’ bad choices can cause trials for us. But that does not mean that we lose hope in God and His promises. His plan for us never changes. We may do things that change the course of our own lives, but His ultimate plan for us will never change.

The Psalms have many wonderful verses about hope. Psalm 33:22 says, “Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, just as we hope in you.” This verse ties God’s mercy to our hope. Because of God’s mercy, we have hope, just like Jeremiah did in the verses above. Psalm 71:14 ties hope with our praise to God. Because of the hope we have, we praise and exalt God, “But I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more.” In Romans 12:12 the apostle Paul instructs Christians to rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer. Do you think God wanted to let Israel be taken into captivity by Babylon? Of course not. But God had to get their attention! In order for His plan to save mankind to unfold at the proper time, He had to allow these things to happen. He didn’t want to!! Remember Deuteronomy 5:29? This is one of my favorite verses that shows the personality of God toward His creation, “Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!” This is it! This is why He allowed them to be taken into captivity. It was a wake up call!! Don’t we realize that all of His people were not doing evil. Think about the children (young men) that were carried away that stayed faithful to God while in captivity, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo. They did not deserve this, but God used them while in captivity as examples for us today in keeping the faith and standing up for the truth of the gospel. Remember the lions’ den and the fiery furnace? These are stories from our childhood Sunday school classes, but they are just as important for us to remember as adults. God also worked through Daniel and gave prophecy about the coming kingdom (the church) in Daniel 2:44, “And in the days of these kings (kings of the Roman Empire) shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.” God’s kingdom is here today. In the midst of all the religious confusion in the world, the Lord’s church is still standing. I love that I can go into any assembly of the Lord’s church and there is no division. The truth is being taught and glory is being given to God. We are all of one accord everywhere the world over. (Philippians 2:2) This is why God kept on punishing and forgiving His people over and over in the old testament. He had to bring about the establishment of His kingdom here on earth, the church, through His Son at the perfect time. This was his plan from the beginning.

God’s timing is perfect. It was perfect during the time of Jeremiah and it is today. Jeremiah had hope in God’s promises in the darkest of times and we can too. In the old covenant, God exercised His judgment immediately and there was no mediator between man and God. In the new covenant, God will exercise judgment at Christ’s second coming. There will be a separation between the sheep and goats. (Matthew 25:31-33) The sheep will be His followers who worship Him in both spirit and truth. God is looking for His people who do this. John 4:23-24 says, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.” And we now have Christ as our mediator between us and God if we are in Him. (1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 9:15)  His sacrifice on the cross made this possible. This is why we and our future generations and generations past have hope. Without Him as our intercessor, we would have no hope. This is to my fellow Christians, never forget that our hope is new every morning in Jesus, no matter what we have to face each day. As I have said in my earlier posts, be in God’s word daily and pray daily and our Father will keep our hope alive if we abide in Him.

Hope this helps us in our Christian walk friends. I write because it helps me study. It is how I study best. Blessings to everyone in the coming week!!

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