Lamentations 3: 19-23
I woke up this morning with my favorite hymn running through my mind. "Great is Thy Faithfulness" is a hymn of appreciation for what all God has done for us. Between now and Advent, my devotional series, "Promises" will be based on the scripture from which this hymn comes.
A quick aside to say that my Wednesday devotional blogs point to what God has done and is doing for us. My 7-day practical faith blogs focus on our response to God's action and how we embed his teachings in our daily lives and actions.
The full text that we will traverse is Lamentations 3: 19-36, part of Jeremiah's lament after the Fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile. Even among the ruins, though, Jeremiah begins to find hope as he considers God more fully and understands the promises of God. Let's start with God's promises of love, from Lamentations 3: 19-23:
I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
I have felt the Lord's love in my life. He has been faithful to me and my family through many trials that continue now. There are times when I have felt unloved and asked Him to love me, and I have experienced His love in return.
When I read this passage, it calls to mind a woman I read about named Priscilla. A long-time sufferer of fibromyalgia, she then was struck by a blood clot in her brain. She now experiences extreme pain throughout her body each day. She is unable to work or drive, and she can only stand or even sit for brief periods.
Like Jeremiah, Priscilla has moments when her soul is downcast, and she asks "Why me?" But each morning, God's compassions arrive anew. She awakes and thanks God for another day. She reaches for her cell phone to read her daily devotion before doing anything else. On her worst days, Priscilla recites from Philippians 4, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Even in the midst of unbearable pain, she experiences God's love each day, just as Jeremiah experienced it sitting on the rubble of Jerusalem.
God promises love to each of us through the love of Christ that permeates and overcomes all obstacles. He renews His promise of compassion every day. So this day, let us seek God and seek His love, with the expectation that God will fulfill His promise and reveal His love and compassion to us.
Please register for my first webinar, "Five Ways to Get Closer to God during a Crisis," based on principles from my book and video series, "The Next Thing: A Christian Model for Dealing with Crisis in Personal Life." The webinar is scheduled for Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. Central time. To register, go to CecilTaylorMinistries.com, scroll down, and enter your information via the registration box that appears.