Posts Tagged: Lamentations 3:19-26

“Waiting and Seeking”

On September 10, 2024 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings,

                        the wormwood and the gall!

Lam. 3:20       My soul continually remembers it

                        and is bowed down within me.

Lam. 3:21       But this I call to mind,

                        and therefore I have hope:

Lam. 3:22 ¶    The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

                        his mercies never come to an end;

Lam. 3:23       they are new every morning;

                        great is your faithfulness.

Lam. 3:24       “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,

                        “therefore I will hope in him.”

Lam. 3:25 ¶    The LORD is good to those who wait for him,

                        to the soul who seeks him.

Lam. 3:26       It is good that one should wait quietly

                        for the salvation of the LORD.” (English Standard Version)

Lamentations is about the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in the 6th century B. C. It is a book filled with raw emotion and darkness. The shines through in the verses that lead off this post, but immediately, the Darkness reasserts itself.

But even remembered sunlight is good. We need to take seriously the pain and the darkness, but we also need to remember the Light. And what is this Light? It goes by many names: the goodness of God, mercy, and deliverance are three of those names.

Faith taps into the goodness of God, his mercy, his deliverance. But faith has two seemingly contradictory aspects. Did you notice those “contradictions” in vs. 25? Let me highlight them for you.

“The LORD is good to those who wait for him,

            to the soul who seeks him.”

Waiting and seeking: which one should we do? Both! The Christian faith does not, cannot, choose between action and meditation. It embraces both. Are there some Christians who tend to be better at action, while other individual Christ-followers are more contemplative? Probably so. However, we all need both. Seeking means there are things we can do to experience the presence of God. Here is a very partial list:

  • Pray.
  • Read the Scriptures.
  • Worship with other believers.
  • Worship by yourself.
  • Do works of love for others.
  • Commune with nature. (God is not nature, but it is God’s creation.)

But waiting and hoping is also important. We cannot compel God’s presence by our actions, even if God does require them. Our works are required, but are not sufficient. If we were simply told to seek, we would wind up with either pride because we might think we’re seeking really diligently, or we would end up with despair because we would know that we’re not really seeking all that diligently. And neither pride nor despair are ways of finding the One who is seeking us.

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