LAMENTATIONS 2:11

My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within;

my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed,

because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

TO PONDER

We sometimes gloss over parts of the Bible that sound like this. After all, it doesn't paint a good picture really, does it? Surely this is not the kind of attitude good Christians ought to have even in the face of difficult times. Yet there are multiple times throughout the Bible, in Exodus, in the book of Psalms, Job, Lamentations, Isaiah and Jeremiah when God's people, even His own messengers and prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah lament and grieve over the situations they find themselves in or which they see happening around them.

We see a lot of things that I'm sure cause most of us that kind of grief when we turn on the news. War in Ukraine, the destruction of floodwaters, the devastation caused by earthquakes, mounting tension with China, rising living costs, and a general breaking down of the long held moral code of the communities in which we live. The point of these kinds of passages of scripture is that they allow us to see that feelings of despair and grief are ok. God doesn't want us to rejoice about these things, they are a result of sin and a broken world.

However, God does invites us to rejoice in spite of these things, because we know that no matter how bad things may get in this life, he has assured those who trust in him, that he will one day come and take us to be with him where there will be no more, crying or death or pain. Praise God for that!

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, help me to always remember that I can come to you with my grief and my concerns and that even when I cannot see you at work in the darkest parts of this world, that you do still work for the good of those whose faith and trust is in you. Amen

Today's devotion by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle