Finding Hope Amidst Suffering

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.

Thomas Chisholm, who wrote this well-known hymn, faced many trials himself. As he wrote, not long before he died, “My income has never been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me on until now. But I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant keeping God and that He has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care which have filled me with astonishing gratefulness.”  Chisholm understood and personally embraced the incredible faithfulness of his God.

Likewise, the prophet Jeremiah wrote Lamentations amid great suffering. Babylon had conquered the holy city of Jerusalem and taken her people into exile. When Jeremiah had tried to warn King Zedekiah, he was thrown into an empty cistern: “There was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud” (Jeremiah 38:6). Picture that weeping prophet as he sank into the filthy mire. He found no handholds on the slick, stone walls and almost died until rescued by an Ethiopian eunuch (vv. 7-13). No one listened to his message from the Lord. The people did not repent and their king continued in sin. Those on the street simply passed by that cistern, going about their daily business unaware of the terrible judgment to come. Jeremiah could have quit right then. But instead, he turned his heart to the Lord and remembered the faithfulness of his God. Lamentations 3 sits at the center of this book as a theological reflection on how to deal with suffering.

Application Insight: The Lord has more mercy than your mess. You may think your life is beyond rescue, but God can turn your mess into a masterpiece. For great is his faithfulness and each morning’s new mercies. For those who have grieved a loss, you know the pain can last longer than you want and often arises at unexpected times. Yet these crushing sorrows will not last forever. So, take sufficient time to grieve as you trust the Lord to carry you through. Here, at the climax of Lamentations, we discover hope in the new morning mercies of God.

Verses 1–18 echo the first two chapters in Lamentations as they depict the loss of hope in the face of suffering. Jeremiah feels that God has stood against him in judgment: “I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath” (v. 1). God has made himself Israel’s ferocious enemy. It seems cruel and unkind like a little boy poking bugs with a stick. It is the opposite of the God we know from Scripture. Yet Jeremiah’s final word in verse 18 is “Yahweh”—God’s covenant name. It lingers on the prophet’s tongue as he contemplates his sorrow and rings in the air to challenge his lament. The setting of Lamentations 3 is not the painting of a quaint little cottage in a country landscape. Rather, it is the horror of Hiroshima after the bomb or the deathly quiet of Gettysburg after the battle. Lament means crying out to God from the depths of our suffering. Sometimes the words are uncomfortable and raw. They might even seem offensive or blasphemous. How could a man or woman of God ever say such things? Yet in the midst of our sorrows, God calls us to honest lament. He’s God. He can handle it. When we finally reach rock bottom, God will meet us there.

We also read Lamentations 3:1-18 in relation to the cross of Christ (Isaiah 52:13–53:12). Consider how the Son of God suffered the afflictions of his Father’s wrath (Romans 3:25; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Darkness fell for three hours without light. His flesh and skin wasted away. The Man of Sorrows was chained and beaten, lonely and abandoned (Matthew 26:56). His enemies nailed him to a cross and he was surrounded by bitter, mocking crowds who hated him without a cause (27:39–44; John 15:25). So, like the prophets before him, Jesus would cry out to the silent heavens: “My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).

Application Insight: Do you ever feel like you have lost all hope—like you’re stuck at the bottom of an empty cistern (see Psalms 88:3–7, 13–17; 143:3)? In your darkest days, are you tempted to blame the sovereign God for the pain of your suffering? Do you see God himself to be your enemy? Tell him what you feel even if you can’t believe it to be true. Then, let God transform your thinking. Let him shape your theology. Let his name linger on your tongue as you meditate on his character and his works throughout history and especially at the cross.