"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him" (Lamentations 3:22-24 KJV).
Probably no preacher or prophet has been given such a heart-rending job as the prophet Jeremiah, who after warning his people to repent had to watch his beloved city Jerusalem destroyed and his unrepentant people carried away in chains. The artist Michelangelo attempted to capture Jeremiah's suffering in his rendering on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (photo left).
In the midst of Jeremiah's weeping and grief he penned the five acrostic poems that became the five chapters of the book of Lamentations. It has been said that there is no other writing in human history like Lamentations that so expresses the depth of human sorrow and suffering. Dr. J. Vernon McGee has said of Lamentations:
"It is a paean of pain, a poem of pity, a proverb of pathos. It is a hymn of heartbreak, a psalm of sadness, a symphony of sorrow, and a story of sifting. Lamentations is the wailing wall of the Bible" (Thru the Bible, V.III).
The Bible is not afraid to meet us in our deepest place of sorrow. It does not avoid the issue of suffering and sadness. Instead of giving us shallow platitudes and cliches, It points us to the only One who is faithful in times of deep sorrow. Lamentations turns our weeping into singing as we hear Jeremiah's soul cry out to God, saying "Great is Thy faithfulness!"
After everything was stripped away, Jeremiah realized that God was enough. He recognized that his "portion" was the Lord Himself and that the Lord was more than enough. Sometimes we have to go through a season of suffering to really get this... God Himself is our reward!
Our church celebrated its 18th anniversary this past January. We've been through nothing like Jeremiah, but we've had many ups and downs. One of the areas that we've struggled is with believing that God would provide a home for our church. We have been meeting in rented facilities for nearly 19 years. During that time we have tried many times to obtain a property of our own. Every time we came up short. The finances or some other detail would not work out.
Finally, after a particularly difficult failure to own and remodel a shopping center for our church, we hit a low point... I hit a low point. I thought about quitting. I suffered headaches and severe back pain. I wondered whether I was even called to pastor. Perhaps WCC should find a better leader, I thought.
Then, we began to heal. We focused on God's faithfulness. We decided to celebrate the fact that we were the "church without walls," the "portable church," the church that's the "people, not the steeple!" We started to see God Himself as our "portion." We began to focus on where God was moving and not worry about the past.
That's when it happened. When we stopped looking for anything beyond what God would provide, an opportunity to purchase a property that had been offered for $1.8 million dollars was opened to us for only $285,000. But there was a problem. If we wanted the property, time was of the essence. The seller would only give us 30 days to close. We didn't even have a building fund. Where would we get the 20% down that the lender required? We would need to raise $65,000.00 in cash in a matter of weeks!
Praise God! This past Sunday we exceeded our goal! God has faithfully provided the $65,000 and the money is still coming in. This whole thing has been a miracle. It's like God held the building for us for five years, so that the property would come down in price, then made the time to buy it so short, as to be impossible without Him.
I believe that God is orchestrating the story of our church so that He gets the most glory. He has taught us to sing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" while we were struggling, in order that we could really sing it loud when He brought us into this new season of blessing.
Next Thursday, we are scheduled to close on the property that our church will remodel for our new home. God has faithfully provided all that we need. But let us not forget what we have learned in the valley. God is more than enough. He is our portion and our reward. Let us never stop singing of His great faithfulness!
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