Recall Shifts

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Lamentations 3:18-26 And I said, "My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD." Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers and sinks within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. 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!" The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

What it is speaking to me:

As positive a guy as I am, I really enjoy reading Lamentations. That is perhaps evidenced by the fact that this is, the third devotional on this set of verses. It keeps pulling on my heart and mind.

My favorite part of the whole book is this turn that happens right here, when Jeremiah "recalls" something really important. If you remember, the book is a lament of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, and you can almost picture Jeremiah walking through the ruins and penning these poems or songs of grief. It is a striking visual to imagine: a man overwhelmed by the grief and destruction that sin had caused in his nation, his family, and friends.

Perhaps you didn't know that Hebrew writers would often write using a writing format called "chiasm." In a chiastic structure of writing, the most important point was in the middle of whatever set of verses they were writing. Lamentations has 5 chapters, with chapter 3 in the middle, and scholars have identified 13 chiastic structures across the book of Lamentations, with the very middle of the book, the most important point, being the verses above, right smack dab in the middle of the whole book. This means the verses above are Jeremiah's focus, the main thing he wanted his readers to take away from the reading.

What is his point? That God is faithful, that He is merciful, that the goodness and compassion of God is renewed to us every morning. He is surrounded by destruction and grief, and this is what he wanted them to recall.

The power of recall is that it shifts us. It shifts our mind. It shifts our hearts. Jeremiah is writing in grief, to a people wrecked with grief. How do you deal with grief? In part, you have to just walk through it to get out of it. But also in part, in small or big ways every grief-filled day, you have to shift your heart and mind to the goodness of God, to His faithfulness, to His compassion, His promise that they are "new every morning."

These were important things that Jeremiah wrote to help shift the hearts and minds of the people of Israel. These are important things for us. They help us shift our hearts and minds to the goodness of God amidst grief.

Honest grief and hope in God's character aren't opposites; they can sit right next to each other, and they did in Jeremiah. We can grieve, and we can hope. We just need to recall, and shift.

What is it saying to you?

How do you recall the goodness of God when you are struggling?

Have you experienced grief and hope at the same time?

How do you work to shift your heart and mind?

What are we going to do about it?

Shift a private mental conversation, or even an in-person conversation, that has become focused on your own problems back toward the goodness of God. Maybe even do yourself a favor and just memorize "Therefore I have hope. Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." Recall that.