2 posts tagged “faithfulness”

I was reading in Lamentations and was struck how often the author of Lamentations (most likely Jeremiah) describes God Himself as the source of Israel's desolate situation (and remember that Lamentations has many prophetic references to the Holocaust).

4 He has bent his bow like an enemy,
with his right hand set like a foe;
and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes
in the tent of the daughter of Zion;
he has poured out his fury like fire.

5 The Lord has become like an enemy;
he has swallowed up Israel;
he has swallowed up all its palaces;
he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
mourning and lamentation.

Lamentations 2:4-5

What really challenges me anew here is the fact that regardless of my situation...regardless of what was done to me by anyone...in the end run, I have to come to grips with the fact that God allowed it to happen. God could have stopped it. But He didn't. And it's here that I have a choice.

a) I break down and lose faith in God's omnipotence (God was not able to stop it, even though he would have wanted to)
b) I break down and lose faith in God's goodness (God did not care to stop it, even though he could have)
c) I go the way of Lamentations: I take it up with God, I let loose my pain and my anger and my grief on God Almighty Himself, yet I keep His goodness and His omnipotence as my anchor. I may not get all the answers I'm looking for, especially not to the ever-present "WHY"... but after a while, I will be reminded of something:

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

And intimately knowing and experiencing this is what we really need...far more than answers to our questions.

117:1 Praise the Lord, all you nations! Applaud him, all you foreigners!

117:2 For his loyal love towers over us, and the Lord’s faithfulness endures. Praise the Lord!

That's the whole Psalm, by the way: This is the shortest Psalm in the Bible. What strikes me here is how inclusive this Psalm is. The Psalmist is talking to the nations and the foreigners, telling them to praise the Lord. This alone is great and shows God's heart for the whole world.

But then the Psalmist takes it one step further and says "For his loyal love towers over us." Who's us? Well, he is including all nations and all foreigners in the loyal love of the God of Israel. Now this is very rare, almost every other time I see talk about "us" or "we" in the Psalms, it's talking about the people of Israel exclusively. This Psalm is quite unique in that it is inclusive, it's just "us" and "Him", not "us" and "them" and "Him" - there is no "them" when talking about the love and faithfulness of God.

Lord, I praise you for loving even my enemies as much as you love me. I thank you that your love towers over us and that your faithfulness toward us endures.