He is our provision
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.’
Lamentations 3:22-24 NIVUK
Several generations have come and gone since rationing was last implemented in my country. But 2020 will go down in history as the year it almost came back again. Not because of supply issues. That's just the thing. What is entirely embarrassing for my people is that rationing could have come back because of panic buying, hoarding and poor shopper behaviour. There was enough. There was always enough. But because we were afraid we stripped the shelves bare of any essentials.
I remember one morning having to get up out of bed at 5am to be at a supermarket at 8am for it opening, and then somehow managing to sweet-talk a checkout assistant into letting me have two kilogram bags of rice instead of one.
That was the first time in my life that I have seen empty shelves for so long.
But there are many who have it far worse. Reports have come in from multiple Christian agencies serving the persecuted church that our spiritual family members in countries like India, Pakistan and many others were denied access to aid. "Let your God provide for you!" their persecutors would taunt them. "You have friends in the West. Let them feed you!"
We often pray to God to meet our needs once and for all, so our bills are paid and we are free from worry. And sometimes He does.
But often He doesn't: both in the Bible and in our lives.
Jeremiah has two perspectives on the Lord's provision here that blow any materialist, prosperity-driven ideas right out of the water. The first is here:
Because of the Lord ’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
Lamentations 3:22 NIVUK
These words are incredibly encouraging. But do you know what they really mean?
Read the rest of the book of Lamentations and you will see a nation writhing in deep pain. But Jeremiah's perspective is that it was fully deserved. Indeed, it could have been much worse. While many would be asking, "Why has God done this? Does He hate us?", Jeremiah says something completely different. He says, "You don't understand. Our sins were so exceedingly great that if God had wiped us off the face of the earth, justice would still not be assuaged."
Read below what Jeremiah says about the sins of his people:
This is what the Lord says about this people: ‘They greatly love to wander; they do not restrain their feet. So the Lord does not accept them; he will now remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins.’ Then the Lord said to me, ‘Do not pray for the well-being of this people. Although they fast, I will not listen to their cry; though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Instead, I will destroy them with the sword, famine and plague.’
Jeremiah 14:10-12 NIVUK
‘When you tell these people all this and they ask you, “Why has the Lord decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the Lord our God?” then say to them, “It is because your ancestors forsook me,” declares the Lord , “and followed other gods and served and worshipped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law. But you have behaved more wickedly than your ancestors. See how all of you are following the stubbornness of your evil hearts instead of obeying me. So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favour.”
Jeremiah 16:10-13 NIVUK
Instead of moaning about their current fate, Jeremiah insists that they should be grateful that God has not destroyed them completely.
And that what the word for 'consumed' means. Jeremiah is saying that because of the Lord's great love for His people, there is still a chance to redeem themselves. There is still breath in their lungs. There is still hope. God has not made an end of them.
This is completely opposite to the way our culture thinks and acts. Most of us in Western countries have lived in peace and prosperity for decades. We have known terrorism, but not known all-out, live-or-die warfare. Neither have we know the famines or natural disasters of other nations. This has made us complacent. Worse, we have grown up with a sense of entitlement. Each generation has grown more prosperous, and more demanding, than the one before. So when God brings hard times upon us, we moan and complain because we don't see good times as a blessing. No, we see them as a right. So when hardship comes, we believe God has broken faith with us; He is not keeping His promises.
Can you imagine the arrogance?
Jeremiah takes the opposite line. He sees the awful and unrelenting sin of his generation and he gives thanks that they are allowed by God to still have air in their lungs. Having gone through the absolutely sickening barbarity of the Babylonian invasion, the two year long siege of Jerusalem, its tragic fall and the ransacking and destruction of the Temple, he is simply grateful to see another day.
How much would our suffering be reduced if we had the same attitude? How much of our stress would dissipate if we stopped arguing with God about our situation and instead gave thanks that we are still alive?
But there is more:
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.’
Lamentations 3:22-24 NIVUK
Twice in these verses we see an interesting concept being mentioned. The Lord's compassions are 'new every morning'. The Lord is Jeremiah's 'portion'. But what could this mean?
The word for 'portion' can also be translated as 'allotment', like a piece of land that is allocated to you. Jeremiah could be referring here to the plot of land he bought in Anathoth (Jeremiah 32). When he wanted to go to visit the plot, he was arrested and imprisoned, accused of being a deserter and a traitor (Jeremiah 37:11-15). We have to remember that land was not just traded as valuable real estate. No, land was traded as a means of producing food.
Secondly, it would also refer to the allocation of bread Jeremiah received every day until the city fell (Jeremiah 37:21). Although he was imprisoned, there were many thousands of his people in the city who were free, but starving to death, while at least he had meagre provisions.
And this is exactly Jeremiah's point. The Lord has shown His great love, not by pouring the contents of Heaven's treasure store into his lap, but by keeping him alive while so many died; by keeping him standing while so many fell. Jeremiah believes he is blessed to face each day, not because he has enough for a week or a month or a year.
This is an important Biblical principle. The manna that fell in the desert was only enough for one day, except for the day before the Sabbath, when enough fell for two days to enable the Israelites to obey God and rest (Exodus 16:14-35). A wise man once asked God to only provide him with his daily bread (Proverbs 30:7-9). Jesus taught the disciples that they should pray to receive their daily bread (Matthew 6:11; Luke 11:3), not their monthly salary. He even told His disciples this:
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34 NIVUK
When suffering and stress rob us of the possibilities to plan our future, then we have a choice. We can either raise our fists to heaven and demand God blesses again. But this will be fruitless. We have no right to demand this. Or we can submit to our eternal Father, turn to Him in gratitude for the fact that we are still breathing and thank Him for His provision for us, however meagre.
In the midst of pain and sorrow that far exceed what any of us will ever go through, Jeremiah was able to do this. Why not us? And how would our mentality change if we follow Jeremiah's example?
Jeremiah tells us about the outcome of being thankful for each new day and for the Lord's provision:
I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’
Lamentations 3:24 NIVUK
Jeremiah is willing to wait because he knows that the Lord will keep giving him days that others do not have. He is willing to wait because God is providing for him every day without fail.
Perhaps if we truly understood Jeremiah's mindset in the midst of severe suffering, then we would be more willing to wait too.
So we have seen the first part of Jeremiah's framework for coping with suffering: that God is our provider and this makes us able to wait for Him to finally bring us through suffering to the blessing on the other side. The second part is that HE IS OUR HOPE.
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