Daily Devotional · Lamentations 3:22–24
Great Is Your Faithfulness
Reflection
"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 is one of the most raw books in the Bible — five poems of grief written in the immediate aftermath of Jerusalem's destruction by Babylon in 586 BC. The city is in ruins. The temple is gone. The people are dead or in exile. Chapter 3 begins with the deepest personal lament: "I am the man who has seen affliction... He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again... He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship." Thirteen verses of darkness. And then: "Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope." The turn is a decision: "I call to mind." It is not a feeling — it is a deliberate act of memory. Against the evidence of the devastation, the writer chooses to remember what is true about God. "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed" — the fact of survival in the middle of disaster is itself a testimony to mercy. We are not consumed. That is not nothing. "His compassions never fail. They are new every morning." This is a declaration made not in prosperity but in ruins. The morning after the destruction of everything you loved, the compassions of God are new. "Great is your faithfulness." This is the chorus of the hymn — and it was sung first from the rubble.
Background
The book of Lamentations is traditionally attributed to Jeremiah (the Septuagint introduces it with "Jeremiah sat and wept"). It consists of five acrostic poems — the first four organized by the Hebrew alphabet — an ordering that suggests comprehensiveness: grief in all its dimensions, from aleph to tav. The turn from lamentation to hope in chapter 3 is the literary and theological center of the entire book.
Truth
The faithfulness of God is not conditional on your circumstances. "Great is your faithfulness" was first sung from ruins. The compassions that are new every morning are available even in the morning after everything has been lost. The declaration precedes the feeling; the feeling follows the declaration.
Application
What ruins are you sitting in right now — what has been destroyed that you loved, what is gone that you are grieving? Do what the writer of Lamentations did: deliberately call to mind what is true about God. Say out loud: his compassions never fail. They are new this morning. Great is his faithfulness. Let the declaration come before the feeling.