This I Call To Mind

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Lamentations 3:19–24 (NIV) I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

What it is speaking to me:

Jeremiah watched Jerusalem burn. He watched the temple fall, watched his people dragged off in chains, watched everything that gave his life meaning turn to ash. He says it plainly: bitterness, gall, his very soul is downcast within him. If you read all the verses in the chapters preceding, you can see he's not pretending to be fine.

But right there, in verse 21, he shifts. "Yet this I call to mind." He did not say "yet everything got better." or "the circumstances have changed." He did not write it from ease, it was written from the rubble. He made a choice in the middle of all the wreckage, to remember something true about God instead of just what was true about his situation.

Our faith isn't tested by whether God shows up in the good seasons; it's tested by whether we call His faithfulness to mind when it feels like everything is falling down around us. "New every morning" isn't a promise that yesterday's problems will disappear, it's a promise that His mercy meets us again today. His faithfulness is never contingent on our circumstances being manageable. It's just contingent on Him being who He says He is.

We can wait in that.

What is it saying to you?

• What "rubble" are you standing in right now that makes God's faithfulness feel hard to believe?

• Is your hope currently anchored to your circumstances improving, or to who God is regardless?

• What would it look like to say "yet this I call to mind" in the middle of what you're facing today?

What are we going to do about it?

Write down five ways God has been faithful to you. Read them out loud. Let them build your faith for today.