A Ray of Hope

I recall this to my mind, Therefore I wait. The Lord’s acts of mercy indeed do not end, For His compassions do not fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I wait for Him.” The Lord is good to those who await Him, To the person who seeks Him. Lamentations 3:21-25 NASB

Do you need a ray of hope today? I found one in an unlikely place.

Poor Jeremiah was caught up in the judgment of his nation. His God-given assignment was to warn his leaders of the impending doom because of their sin and disobedience. They didn’t heed his words and even persecuted him for them. So, he suffered the same hardships with them (war, starvation, captivity, etc.).

In Jeremiah’s suffering, he wrote poems of lament. The first four of the five chapters in Lamentations are acrostics in which each stanza begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I’m afraid his literary artistry is lost on me. I don’t read Hebrew, and the poetry doesn’t come through in English. I feel his pain and grief though. That is what makes the book of Lamentations hard to read. So, I am looking for a ray of hope.

In the overwhelming tragedies of life, Jeremiah’s hope was in God’s mercies. God’s yearning for His wayward people reveals His mercy. Even in divine discipline, God’s commitment was, and still is, to restore us back to Himself.  

Our hope is in God’s mercy – His covenant love. Every day, all day long, God is longing to lavish His love on us. How do we step out of suffering and into the light of His love? We allow our pain to draw us into God’s presence, to produce our own prayers of lament, and to surrender to the Lover of our souls.

Do you need a ray of hope today? Remember God’s mercy. Renew your covenant with Him and receive His shower of love upon you. His mercies are new every morning. God is our hope.