Soulfood

Growing in Hope

Lamentations gives voice to a universal experience of suffering. It reminds us not only of the importance of mourning over sin in our lives, but also over brokenness and desolation in our lives.

Laments give expression to our cries for understanding but also to our hope for change.

Lament is a powerful practice of giving voice to grief, but also of looking for meaning and hope in suffering. Frankel – “ he who has a why for living can endure any hell.”

There are many things we hope in that disappoint us. If our hopes are not living and transcendent, they will leave us empty and despairing. As Christians, we find hope and meaning in the eternal truths of the gospel.

Everything we love in this world will be taken away from us. This truth reorients our hope towards heaven. We must count all that is earthly as loss, and seek to lose our hope in this life so that we can gain the joy of heaven.

We can either allow our circumstances to inform our view of God, or we can allow God to inform our view of our circumstances. One leads to destruction and the other to life. Lamentations 3:21 only makes sense if we know the steadfast love of YHWH.

There are things this world can give us to bring relief from suffering. But we must not put our hopes in them.

Hopelessness doesn’t exist when we are suffering, but only when suffering possesses us. We can be confident that in Christ we are not possessed our sufferings. We have a “why” that allows us to endure any hell, because we have a living hope.

Worldly hope is a restless desire for an outcome not likely to happen, won’t satisfy, and will eventually pass away. Biblical hope is a desire to be with Christ, and it is a sure hope that does not disappoint and cannot be taken away!

Christ’s suffering gives us hope for a treasure that moth and rust cannot destroy. Christ’s suffering brings meaning and hope to our suffering. Lamentations is the cry of Christ who suffered all so that all who hope in him will not be disappointed or unsatisfied. We can be content knowing that our sufferings are not wasted or a mistake. We must seek, like Jesus, in the Scriptures the hope that we need to give meaning to life.

God doesn’t command us not to express our laments. We are given example after example of expressions of grief, loss, and anguish wherein the sufferers are not reproached.

We can be encouraged that suffering in this life is preparing us for eternal glory – we have a wise and loving Father who is working all things for our good. Christ came not as a triumphant king but as a suffering servant – so as we follow him to glory, we deny our sinful self-pity, take up our crosses, and follow him on the path of suffering.

God is always taking our suffering and using it to transform us more and more into the likeness of Christ.

Living hope frees us from the prison of our painful circumstances to serve God and one another with rejoicing and thanksgiving!