GOD’S LOVE, FAITHFULNESS, AND PORTION
We have all heard the saying that the rearview is always clearer than the view through the windshield. Also, we can’t connect the dots looking forward, we can only connect them looking backward. Both point to the fact that setbacks and detours in life always make more sense after we have gone through them.
Lamentations 3:19-24 offers an honest look back at a common experience of an emotional roller-coaster: 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.”
On the one hand, it describes one plunging into the sea of dark emotions; and on the other hand, it declares the unshakeable nature of God’s character. Both are powerful realities but only God’s nature is a permanent one.
Whether we’re fighting intense emotions before an operation or a medical procedure, or we’re thrust into family life transitions that we’re unprepared for and we’re unsure of how to move forward, it pays to balance our very real human experience of what’s going on with biblical counternarratives about God’s love, faithfulness, and a portion to give us a perspective that extends beyond what we are feeling now.
The verse, ‘Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope’, forces us to refocus on what God has done in the past – in our life, in someone else’s life, or straight from a Bible story – that demonstrates His goodness and power. Here’s another compelling truth about God (2 Timothy 2:13 paraphrased): If we are unfaithful (or forgetful), He remains faithful, for He cannot deny who He is.
The hindsight from our post-event evaluation will always be clearer than any foresight fraught with anxieties and risks, particularly when we’re dealing with unexpected life events that show up without warning to disrupt the normalcy we rely on.
Consider your immediate thoughts if you suddenly slipped and had a bad fall while carrying a toddler. Would your natural thoughts be God’s supernatural healing that will surpass all predictions or the comforting songs that will loop on auto-reply in your mind to remind you of the sustaining goodness of God? Or would it be something closer to intense worry about the child’s wellbeing, and how much a serious knee injury would throw your life into chaos and your current plans in limbo. Yet, in the end, God’s unfailing love would emerge as a reality and once again, become more than an abstract truth in your life.
Or consider the heightened anxiety when your grown children prepare to leave the family nest for the first time. You find it hard to shake off the uncomfortable silence that gradually replaces the once busy household, and the pain of separation that creeps up once the practical aspects of their departure are out of the way. The emotional process can be so isolating, especially for single parents, that the only comfort you get is to quietly look through old photographs of your children because it is hard to explain to anyone what you are going through. Yet in doing so, you recall what God has done through the years and the unchanging nature of His faithfulness.
Or consider the loss of a loved one whose unflinching faith in Jesus leaves a haunting effect on your own life as you face your own mortality and renegotiate the business of living and discovering the love of God.
Or imagine, after years of moving around rental properties without a permanent address, God finally led you to a dream home that upended your nomadic life. Finally, you can say with confidence that ‘the Lord is my portion’.
David Wilkerson encapsulated it beautifully this way: “Our faith is not meant to get us out of a hard place or change our painful condition. Rather, it is to reveal God’s faithfulness to us in the midst of our dire situation.”
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:26
So when we find ourselves weathering an emotional storm, or facing arduous headwinds, without signs of progress or positive change, let us ‘call to mind’ three key truths:
#1 God’s Love is Unfailing: His great love overcomes all frustrations and loneliness.
#2 God’s Faithfulness is Unchanging: He’s not a fair-weather God. His compassions are new every morning. In the original text, it means He has a fresh and abundant supply of love to rebuild our inner person. Therefore, day or night, we can trust God to be there for us.
#3 God’s Portion is our All Sufficiency: He provides us all that we need to go through all that we must. He empowers us to live, not escape.
So, let us live boldly and let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful (HEBREWS 10:23).
1 Warren Buffet
2 Steve Jobs
