Imagine the scene of overturned rubble and billowing smoke rising to the heavens. The bustling city is largely uninhabited because your dreaded enemy has deported the people. To make matters worse, the beacon of hope and reminder of God’s presence lies in ruins as well. These are the sights and smells that the prophet Jeremiah experienced as he beheld the city of Jerusalem after Nebuchadnezzar’s siege. The siege of Jerusalem was not an all-at-once event; rather, it took close to three years for the city to fall completely. Jeremiah’s recollections of this devastation are found in the Book of Lamentations. The book reads like one long funeral dirge and draws the reader into the plight of God’s people.
However, that reading misses the forest for the trees, because there is a significant turning point in the book, which occurs in chapter 3, particularly midway through it. Consider verses 22-24:
Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”
In the midst of deep grief and sadness, Jeremiah remembers God’s mercies. In our time, some lament where our nation is headed, and this anxiousness is heightened during election season. Some imagine that we could be in a situation much like Jeremiah’s. I don’t know the future, and the aforementioned pundits could be right in their assessment. However, for the child of God, we must cling to the same truths that Jeremiah held onto: namely, that it is because of God’s mercy that we are not completely consumed and that His mercies are new every morning because He is faithful. Regardless of whether God has a great reformation or greater regression in store, we should entrust ourselves to His mercy.