The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him.
- Lamentations 3:25
Back stories give us insight and clarity.
Everyone has a back story. It’s the tragic childhood of a movie’s main character that gives us compassion for her recklessness or hope for her redemption. Back stories give us a depth of understanding that helps us relate to a character. In much the same way, this month’s verse has a doozy of a back story. And, in order the see the full beauty of our verse, we have to behold it within the context of it’s sordid story. So, hold on for the ride, it’s going to get a little bumpy.
The short of it is that God’s people had rebelled against him, deeply, knowingly, and recklessly for decades. So, God finally disciplines them, sending another nation to conquer them. Lamentations is a series of 5 poems expressing their deep grief in the thick of that very situation. The people are broken, hungry, and destitute. But, who do they turn to? Where is their hope? It’s actually in God, the God they abandoned and offended. And, even though they know that the hardship, the hurt, and the sorrow is coming from God, he is the one they cry out to for help. When everything is at its absolute worst, when they’re at the end of themselves, they place their hope in God. It’s in the midst of all of the bad that they affirm “God is still good”. And, when they have nothing left, they seek God, believing that he will yet rescue them. He will keep his promise. He will yet show them his goodness.
As we work through this verse, you may find yourself in a similar place －a place of difficulty and darkness. I hope that you can find solace knowing that our verse is not the cheap words of a person living large. Rather, these are the desperate cries of God’s people in dark times, clinging to this promise, “The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him”.
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