Short passages that lend themselves to bumper stickers and framed embroidery litter the Bible. One of those is Lamentations 3:22-24, or any of the three verses in isolation.
Certainly the faithful love of the Lord hasn’t ended; certainly God’s compassion isn’t through! They are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I think: The Lord is my portion! Therefore, I’ll wait for him. (Lamentations 3:22-24, CEB)
Such short verses can offer quick encouragement in troubled times. But when we miss their context, we might miss some depth. One clue to these verses comes in the name of the book that contains them. Lamentations. That’s not a common word, but the word itself has depth and layers. The quoted verses have deeper meaning partly because they fall at the center of a longer passage that has a completely different feel.
Consider the verses that come immediately before verses 22-24:
I am someone who saw the suffering caused by God’s angry rod.
He drove me away, forced me to walk in darkness, not light.
He turned his hand even against me, over and over again, all day long.He wore out my flesh and my skin; he broke my bones.
He besieged me, surrounding me with bitterness and weariness.
He made me live in dark places like those who’ve been dead a long time.He walled me in so I couldn’t escape; he made my chains heavy.
Even though I call out and cry for help, he silences my prayer.
He walled in my paths with stonework; he made my routes crooked.He is a bear lurking for me, a lion in hiding.
He took me from my path and tore me apart; he made me desolate.
He drew back his bow, made me a shooting target for arrows.He shot the arrows of his quiver into my inside parts.
I have become a joke to all my people, the object of their song of ridicule all day long.
He saturated me with grief, made me choke on bitterness.He crushed my teeth into the gravel; he pressed me down into the ashes.
I’ve rejected peace; I’ve forgotten what is good.
I thought: My future is gone, as well as my hope from the Lord.The memory of my suffering and homelessness is bitterness and poison.
I can’t help but remember and am depressed.
I call all this to mind—therefore, I will wait. (Lamentations 3:1-21, CEB)
When those immediately precede “Certainly the faithful love of the Lord hasn’t ended; certainly God’s compassion isn’t through!” it changes the whole flavor, doesn’t it?
I actually started writing this piece over a year ago, March 30, 2020. At that time, we thought we were having it bad because of the spread of COVID-19. We could not have imagined what the last 12 months have been. We are certainly in a period that fits the mode of lamentation.
Yet in the midst of such a lament we find the key verses, already quoted:
Certainly the faithful love of the Lord hasn’t ended; certainly God’s compassion isn’t through! They are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
That kind of faith involves more than surface faith, deeper than, “Life is good, so I will praise God!” Insights in Lamentations show a recognition of their situation resulting from their own decisions and actions. That does not prevent them from crying out to God for relief, nor hoping for an eventual salvation. It also allows the writer (and his readers) to recognize how God sustains them in the midst of their challenges.
Perhaps the ancient book is the perfect book for our own time. Let us remember within our context: God’s compassion isn’t through!