Daily Devotion, December 9, 2020

 

Devotion: Read Lamentations 3:22-24.

Sunrises and Sunsets! Beautiful gifts from God! A brand new day is a beautiful gift from God, too! We can begin each day knowing of God’s love and mercy. It’s like a fresh start every morning!

These verses from Lamentations give us hope and inspired the lyrics of the beloved hymn, written prior to 1923 by Thomas Chisholm, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”. Looking back on the writing of the hymn, Chisholm recalled in 1941, "My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me on until now. Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant keeping God and that He has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness."

It cannot be overlooked that these verses which sustain us through difficult times are within this book of Lamentations in the Old Testament! (This is one of those tiny, five chapter books in the Bible wedged between Jeremiah and Ezekiel which I usually have to look up the page number to find. And I had forgotten that the words from “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” came from this book!)

But how profound, that these words are within this book of Lamentations! It’s easy to speak of God’s faithfulness when things are going well, but to speak these words in the midst of suffering gives hope in the midst of despair!

Eugene Peterson’s introduction to Lamentations in The Message says, “Lamentations, written out of the Exile experience, provides the community of faith with a form and vocabulary for dealing with loss and pain. The precipitating event, the fall of Jerusalem, is told in 2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 52. It is impossible to overstate either the intensity or the complexity of the suffering that came to a head in the devastation of Jerusalem and then continued on into the seventy years of exile in Babylon. Loss was total.”

In the midst of this experience, these words of faith in the faithfulness of God were written and spoken. And the word “faithfulness” is not just a characteristic of God. It is a word of the relationship God has with us and a gift of love from God to us and all of creation. Personal Worship Option: Read these verses again and let them give hope to you. “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 3:22-24