“Remember my affliction and my wanderings. The wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers that it is bowed down within me, but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in Him.”
– Lamentations 3:19–24
This is one of the most beautiful passages in the Old Testament, yet it’s written from a place of hurt and longing for hope. Lamentations 3:19–24, this is a lament over pain and suffering and confusion as the people of God are experiencing the effects of sin. Yet in their affliction and their wanderings, in the pain and bitterness, the wormwood and the gall, as their souls are bowed down within them, this they call to mind, and therefore they have hope. What is their hope?
God’s Steadfast Love for Us
God’s mercies for you are new every morning. His steadfast love for us never ceases. He is faithful and even in the midst of tragedy we can hope in Him.
The reality of the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never, ever, ever come to an end. The mercies of the Lord are new every single morning, and the faithfulness of the Lord is sure forever. I just want to remind you of this, that you might live in this today, especially, especially if you are going through affliction, or if you have wandered this way or that way.
Lamentations 3:19–24 Reminds Us of God’s Love
Even just a hard painful even bitter time with your soul bowed down within you, I just want to encourage you with this word from God, His mercies are new for you right now. Right now. His steadfast love for you never ever ceases. God loves you, and He wants to pour out new mercy on you today in a way that’s even more glorious than yesterday or a week ago or 10 years ago, that His mercies are new for you today, that He is faithful to you, and you can hope in Him.
You can hope in Him. That’s the beauty of what we celebrate at Christmas. Even as we walk through this Advent journey and we think about where we would be in this world without the hope of Jesus, without the faithfulness of God, without the new mercies of God, without the steadfast love of God, we would indeed be hopeless.
Our Faithful God Who Overcomes Sin
But God is faithful. God is loving. His love is steadfast, and His mercies are continually flowing, and all of that is possible because Jesus has come. He has paid the price for sin. He has reconciled us to God. The Lord has opened up for us a fountain of new mercies to flow every day. He has shown us the faithfulness of God for our salvation.
He has shown us the steadfast love of the Lord that overcomes even our sinful resistance and rebellion. All glory be to Your name for Your love, O God, for your steadfast love that never ceases. All glory be to Your name, Jesus, for coming and paying the price for our sins that the fountain of new mercies would never, ever, ever cease to flow in our lives.
Lamentations 3:19-24 Prays for God’s Mercy to Overflow
God, I just pray for a fresh flow of Your mercy over every single person who is listening to this right now that they would feel in a fresh way the magnitude of Your love for them, Your care for them, of Your sufficiency, of Your satisfaction, that they would know Your faithfulness in greater ways today than they ever have.
We praise You, O God. We praise You for Your faithfulness, even when we are unfaithful, You are faithful still. Jesus, we praise You for your Faithfulness, too. Jesus, we praise You for Your faithfulness that took You all the way to the cross on our behalf. We say today together as we pray our hope is in You.
The Lord, You are our portion, and our hope is in You, Your steadfast love, Your faithfulness, and Your new mercies, which we need every single morning. Jesus, we praise You for making this hope a reality for us, and we pray that You would use our lives to spread Your hope in our hurting world around us, right around us, far from us. Please, God, especially here at Christmas, but just in every facet of our lives, all throughout the year, help us to be proclaimers of this hope that others might know Your steadfast love and mercy in Jesus.
Oh, God, please may it be so. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
