Reflection: Forever loved

Lamentations is a book of the Bible that’s been labelled ‘the A-Z of grief’. Though we can’t be sure, it too, was probably written by our lamenting prophet Jeremiah. In both his books, the ‘weeping prophet’ pours out his soul and bares a broken heart. He so empathises with God’s covenant people, it’s as if his own body bears God’s crushing messages for them. He’s gutted. But, smack in the middle of his catalogue of grief and angst, is this treasure:

“I remember my affliction and my wandering,

the bitterness and the gall.

I well remember them,

 and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind

and therefore, I have hope…”

What does he remember?!

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning.

great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion.

therefore, I will wait for him.’” (Lamentations 3:19-24 NIV)

What’s the treasure? That we are grounded in the Lord’s great love that never fails. Or as 1 John 4:16 puts it: “…God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” 

Does this treasure buoy you, too, with a sense of hope? Does it deeply settle you with a sense of significance and value? Oh, it’ll provoke some needed humility too…but it’ll cheer you with comfort when things go wrong, and it’ll offer clear direction for how to live.

Prayer:

Loving God, radically reorientate my outlook on today and tomorrow, on this broken world and a renewed eternity. Settle and stir me as necessary. Sink the profound truth of your knowing love into every dark corner of my mind and heart. Permeate the profound truth of your never-failing love into every dark corner of your bride, the church—for your delight and the honour of your name throughout the world.

*See Known by God: A Biblical Theology Of Personal Identity by Brian S Rosner