Remember this?



This verse (see picture) was sent to me this week.  The preceding verses in this chapter are quite negative!  The writer is truly lamenting over what a terrible plight he is in.  The very word 'lament' means 'a passionate expression of sorrow or grief'.  He wasn't in a good place at all!  But after all that lamenting, we find in verse 21-23 of Chapter 3 the writer says this:

Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing:The Lord's unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. Lamentations 3:21-23 (GNT) 

Despite the fact that Israel has turned away from the Lord and there is great mourning and sorrow, the writer comes back to this point: God's mercy has kept us from being destroyed, His compassion never fails and His faithfulness is great!

We are not in such dire straights as this scenario in Lamentation.  Judgement for our own sins has been poured out on Jesus on the cross.  If we have accepted Christ, we are free from the penalty of sin as Children of God. We are not without God under the New Covenant. Thank goodness for that!

But sometimes we ALL feel like lamenting.  We all feel sorrowful, or we are in grief, but the truth is, even in our own dark times, we can bring back hope.  

The way we think has a direct effect on how we feel.  If we are thinking on sorrowful things all the time, we will feel down and discouraged, but when we remember the faithfulness of God and His great compassion, hope will come!  

Some people take no responsibility for their thought life, believing that they can't help what they think about, but while we may not be able to control every thought that enters our heads, we CAN control what we do with them.

The bible speaks of taking every thought captive (2 Cor 10:5), that means that we lock that thought in a prison! We don't let it go wondering through our minds; we don't feed it, we don't meditate on it.  We lock it away and bring it into obedience to Christ. 

When we focus on the unfailing love and goodness of God, our emotions will follow a positive pattern, because when you think about how much God loves, you it's hard to be miserable -you have to work really hard at it! 

So today, even if all is well with you, I encourage you to consider how great God's faithfulness has been to you.   Maybe even write some testimonies down of when you have seen his faithfulness in action, and meditate on them, consider them, and I believe that hope will rise, faith will stir and joy will come.

Have a great weekend.

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