Future Faith Despite Present Pain

Scripture Reading: Lamentations 3

Jeremiah and Lamentations are not the most encouraging writings in the Bible.  Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet.  His days were difficult ones in which he shared in the sufferings and judgment being inflicted upon his kinsman.  In Lamentations chapter three Jeremiah says that God led him into darkness, put him in places he didn’t want to be, gave him no way out, and wouldn’t listen to his prayers.  He compares God to a bear and a lion waiting to ambush him and then he says that God is using him for target practice.

              But Jeremiah doesn’t stop there.  He goes on to say that his hope is in the Lord, that God is good, and that His mercies are new every morning.  He reminds us that the day of affliction is not the end of the story.  Jeremiah teaches us that sometimes faith involves believing when we can’t see any reason to believe.  

              One of the great passages of the Old Testament is found in Jeremiah 29:11. In it God says, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you . . .thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”  Those words were spoken to a people about to be led into seventy years of captivity.  At times faith is believing in a hope-filled future despite a pain-filled present.