Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Lamentations 3 before reading the devotional below.
It is my sincere hope that every single day you actually read the Bible passage and not just my devotional thoughts (in the God versus me match-up, you really should go with him…). But today, I implore you to read this whole chapter. I never would have guessed that I would find a new favorite chapter of the Bible in Lamentations, but I will be coming back to this chapter for a while in my own prayer life. It is perhaps the most human chapter in all of the Bible.
While I read verses 1-20, all I could see was Jesus on the cross. Go back and read them with Jesus’ experience in mind — the sense of anguish and pain of betrayal by God himself were most deeply felt by Jesus in that moment of death. Of course, to varying degrees we have all felt those feelings and we can read ourselves into these verses as well. But the author turns around, connecting with hope and remembering everything that is true about God. That he is good. That no one is abandoned by God forever. That redemption is on the way. That the story ends better than it seems right now.
That phrase in verse 21: “Yet I still dare to hope…” It turns everything around. The power of those simple words transforms us from hopeless and despairing to spiritually empowered. In my own life, sometimes I enter places of despair when I doubt whether God has spoken to me. I question myself and I question him. Or I feel that the pain I’m going through is a sign of the ultimate betrayal by God. He has forgotten. Or worse, maybe he lied. Or I fooled myself. And yet, when I dare to hope his words ring truer than they ever have before. Life only makes sense when you move through it with a supernatural view. Without that God-lens, we are truly hopeless.