Readings for today: Lamentations 1:1-3:36
I have a friend named Dinesh. Dinesh is a Ugandan pastor who ministers in the northern part of his country. When he was a boy, he lived under the constant threat of terrorism. The Lord’s Resistance Army under the leadership of Joseph Kony was very active in his region. He was trained by his family to run into the bush when he heard the jeeps and trucks roll into his village. He escaped several times over the years only to come back and find the bodies of his family members who had been killed. Eventually, those living in villages all over northern Uganda escaped to cities like Kitgum where Dinesh now lives. They found safety in numbers but they left their homes behind. They left their livelihoods behind. The cities were not set up to support all the refugees so many of them suffered from life-threatening poverty. It’s been many years since Kony ravaged the region. The latest news has him hiding out in the Central African Republic, a shadow of his former self. Still, the people are afraid to go home. They believe their villages are cursed. The memories of death and destruction are too painful to face. It reminds me of Lamentations.
“My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom…In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity.” (Lamentations 2:11-12, 21) It’s hard to believe this kind of thing still happens around the world. But it’s more common than we realize. This fall I hope to travel to the northern regions of Ethiopia where a civil war has been raging for the last couple of years. We are hoping to launch over seventy new church planters into the area to bring the hope of the gospel to people who are experiencing unbelievable suffering. We will work alongside our indigenous leaders to empower them and equip them and resource them as they rebuild. But it will not be an easy task. The trauma is immense. The pain is very real. We will lament even as we labor to bring renewal and restoration.
It’s not easy to read a book like Lamentations. It’s not easy to enter another person’s pain and suffering. It’s not easy to hear them cry out. It’s not easy to look at the world through their tear-filled eyes. It’s not easy to sit with them in the ashes and dust of their lives and listen to them. And yet the Lord calls us to weep with those who weep. To mourn with those who mourn. To grieve with those who grieve. Jeremiah models this for us by putting these words to paper. Though he knows God is in the right, his heart breaks for God’s people. He feels their pain intensely. Listen to just a few of the verses from Lamentations 3 again, “I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light…He has made my flesh and my skin waste away…he has broken my bones; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago…though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer…he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate…He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver…He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood…He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:1-2, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15-18) All hope seems lost but Jeremiah continues to turn to the Lord. “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:21-26)
God is always faithful. Even in judgment, His desire is to bring mercy and forgiveness and grace. His love is steadfast, loyal, faithful, and true. It never wavers. It never ceases. It never fails. No matter where you may find yourself today, turn to the Lord! Make Him your portion! Make Him your hope! Make Him your sanctuary! No matter what pain or suffering you may endure, wait for the Lord. Seek His face! Trust He is already on His way to bring deliverance and salvation in this life and the next!
Readings for tomorrow: Lamentations 3:37-5:22