Affliction, Anguish, and Hope

Lamentations 3:1-18 

1 I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.

2 He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
3 Surely He has turned His hand against me
Time and time again throughout the day.

4 He has aged my flesh and my skin,
And broken my bones.
5 He has besieged me
And surrounded me with bitterness and woe.

6 He has set me in dark places
Like the dead of long ago.
7 He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
He has made my chain heavy.

8 Even when I cry and shout,
He shuts out my prayer.
9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.

10 He has been to me a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in ambush.
11 He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.

12 He has bent His bow
And set me up as a target for the arrow.
13 He has caused the arrows of His quiver
To pierce my loins.

14 I have become the ridicule of all my people—
Their taunting song all the day.
15 He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drink wormwood.

16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel,
And covered me with ashes.
17 You have moved my soul far from peace;
I have forgotten prosperity.

18 And I said, "My strength and my hope
Have perished from the LORD."

Sometimes we feel like the prophet who endured affliction and anguish in his adversity of the circumstances.  But there is hope to seek relief as well.  All is not lost when we trust in God over the pain of the situations we find ourselves in as Jeremiah did.  This first third of the chapter shows his affliction under God’s wrath where it appeared that the LORD was against him and darkness had covered the light from his vision.  All seemed quite hopeless.  He felt beaten and broken as his countrymen were and felt as if a battle had set siege walls against the fortress of his faith and attacked with bitterness and woe in the place of joy and peace.  It was like the darkness of the hopeless grave encompassed him as if chained in a dungeon again before Jerusalem was under siege by Babylon.  His shouts of prayer seemed to go nowhere as if God had shut him out from being heard, like hitting a stone wall of that imprisonment of his body and soul.  He felt as the prey of a bear waiting to attack him along the way which was made crooked and turned him out of the way of the LORD he was used to walk in and was left desolate and ruined.  He felt like arrows were shot at him as if he was a target for these afflictions aimed at him.  Others around laughed and mocked him with taunting jeers of songs made to irritate and humiliate him.  Such bitterness!  The man was so far removed from peace and prosperity which he had in the LORD before and it led him to declare that all his strength and hope had disappeared.  That is how circumstances can bring depression and anxiety to take away our peace when our focus leaves the Lord and settles on the adverse circumstances which God allows for our good (Romans 8:28).  We need to remember that He brings peace (Isaiah 32:17, Hebrews 12:11) as a fruit of trust in His providence in His best time, just as Jeremiah was to discover for himself.  Affliction and anguish of soul are cured by sovereign hope for all who are called by Him.  May we not allow our steadfast hope to be taken from the narrow path we walk with our Lord (1 Peter 5:10-11).