When Life is Hard

I love Scripture's honesty. I love how the biblical authors, inspired by the Holy Spirit, don't hold back about despair, weakness, doubt, or fear. They don't step gingerly around topics of pain or temptation or trouble. They are frank about the fact that life is hard.

So when the biblical writers speak to us of hope and joy and peace, we know these are real too. And in our depths of despair, we can take their hand and follow them out of the pit.

Take for example, the words of Jeremiah in Lamentations 3 that we are all so familiar with: "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness" (v. 22-23). These words are spoken from the heights, a spectacular panorama. But how do we get there when we feel crippled by the trials of life? 
 
The same way Jeremiah did.

Only a few verses earlier he writes from the deepest valley: "...my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, 'My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord'" (v. 17-18).

Can you relate? Hope, gone. Peace, gone. Happiness, so far gone, you can't even remember what it feels like. What do we say to someone who confesses this? Do we recoil at their lack of faith? And yet here is Jeremiah, prophet of God, confessing that in his trouble he feels bereft of all of the blessings of the people of God.
 
Then Jeremiah shows us how he gets from the depths to the heights: "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope..." (v. 21).

His soul, which had taken its last breath of hope, was resuscitated by calling to mind who God is and what He does. He is faithful. He shows mercy, He does love. He does not forget. He sent His only Son who endured the agony of the cross, in our place and for our sins, and rose again, victorious. This I call to mind.

Notice that Jeremiah's trial was unchanged. He didn't get a phone call that the cancer was gone. He didn't find his enemies on his front porch asking for forgiveness. He didn't get hired. His child didn't become a Christian. But he had something better.

He had hope. Hope that one day, even if it wasn't until heaven, he would know happiness again.