Freedom For Today

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Lamentations 5 before reading the devotional below.

We have taken these past few days to connect with the pain of grief and sorrow. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you’ve been reading — leave a comment here or on the Facebook page to share your thoughts. You never know what can be of help or encouragement to someone else.

If you were waiting for Lamentations to come to a nice resolution, I’m sorry. It’s pretty much a downer. The writer ends with a simple question to God: “Are you still angry with us?” There is a sense of uncertainty as God’s people repent and ask for restoration back into right relationship with him. Much like children who have disobeyed and received a punishment, they are peering out from behind a door asking if it is okay to come out. The word “remember” strikes me in this chapter. There is something powerful in preserving the memory of pain and hardship in order to acknowledge what has happened.

No matter what you are going through right now, or how far away God seems to be, he is walking with you through every single moment. You are not an afterthought to God. You are not taking time from his busy schedule and he’d rather not be bothered. Just the opposite! God is actively at work in your life, working harder than you possibly could to bring restoration and healing to you. He will never minimize or forget your pain because it is part of the rescue story. What happens to you matters — to God more than anyone else.

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Lamentations 4 before reading the devotional below.

Today’s chapter contains some graphic images. Thirsty, hungry children. Soot-covered men who were former princes. Mothers who have cooked their own children just to survive. It’s awful. God had promised prosperity to his people, but he warned them about abandoning him for other people’s ways. Even in the description of the mothers eating their babies, it is a reminder that God’s people have gone so far astray. After all, child sacrifice was normative amongst Israel’s neighboring religions, but strictly forbidden by God.

It finally gets so bad that God is willing to relent. He is no longer angry because the sins of his people have been adequately punished. God’s consequences are always appropriate and fair, so he will not allow more suffering than is necessary. And lest we start comparing ourselves and thanking our lucky stars that we are not like Jerusalem (as the Edomites appeared to be doing), we are reminded that we are no different and our sins will also lead us into this same kind of destruction.

Life ebbs and flows and problems come and go. Even if you are suffering terribly right now, whether as a result of your own sin or the general sin-state of the world, it will come to an end. We have that hope as an eternal guarantee. Most of the time, we don’t even have to wait until we get to heaven — God is at work restoring you right now. He has intentions, purposes, and plans for your life. He’s not wasting any time with you, he’s bringing his vision about. All you have to do is keep saying “Yes” when he asks, “Will you come with me?”

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.

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Lamentations 2 before reading the devotional below. 

So many people live with a belief that God is angry with them, or that in general God is angry and causing a whole lot of suffering. Today’s chapter is one of the reasons why — it sure sounds like God is very angry and has caused a lot of destruction as a result. There is no way to clean this up or say that God is not angry here. His wrath is real and the people of Jerusalem are in deep mourning in this chapter.

As always, our goal is to understand the character of God as we read the Bible. What does this reveal about him? Why would he even want this in the Bible anyway? We think of times we have gotten angry, and usually we are not proud of what happened as a result. God is willing to have this story about him documented for all of history. Why would he choose to do that? The key to this passage is sin. Verse 17 says that God did exactly what he promised he would do if his people turned away from him and entered into sin. This punishment was planned and intentional. In many ways, the response that his people are experiencing now — deep lament — is exactly what he was hoping for.

God does not want to punish you because he is out of control in his anger. He is not shaking his head disappointed in you. But sometimes he does remove protection from your life or destroy things in order to bring about your restoration. Sin has consequences. God already promised that. He is faithful to keep his word and he gives us plenty of warning about the ways sin will ruin our lives. If we do not feel the weight of our sin, we are more likely to continue in it and move farther and father away from God. When we experience pain as a result of our sin, our hearts break as we realize we have gone our own way. In our lament we turn back to God and invite him to rescue us all over again. God does not change his mind in these moments — his intention was always to welcome you with open arms. If you have been caught in sin and are in the midst of feeling the consequences, let your heart break and turn back to God. He’s ready. Are you?