Jeremiah had a tough job. Speaking the Word of the Lord to God’s people regarding sure and impending judgement, yet through it understanding the fullness of His love and purpose.
We are each faced with this same enigma, and seeming oxymoron, in our own lives and experiences and in sharing the fullness of His nature and character with others.
We are prone to ask “Why?” We are prone to speak effusive praise to Him in one circumstance and curses in others (if not vocally, in our hearts).
I am convinced knowing Him is possible. But, knowing His nature and character in the fullness of love, and in just judgement is not easy. It is difficult and for that reason the church is not trained well in knowing the full nature and character of the God with whom we have to do. The Only True God! And, by far and in large part, platform teachers shy away from the subject, only touching it when counseling grief or counseling through, in, or after calamity.
Jeremiah had an understanding of the nature and character of God. Sovereign God! Omnipotent God! Omniscient God! Infinite God! Eternal God! Merciful God! Loving God! Compassionate God! Just Judgment God!
That is why he could say things like
[Lamentations 3:37-38 NET] 37 מ (Mem) Whose command was ever fulfilled unless the Lord decreed it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that everything comes – both calamity and blessing?
[Lamentations 3:37-38 NASB95] 37 Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, Unless the Lord has commanded [it?] 38 [Is it] not from the mouth of the Most High That both good and ill go forth?
And the only Why he follows up with is this:
[Lamentations 3:39-40 NASB95] 39 Why should [any] living mortal, or [any] man, Offer complaint in view of his sins? 40 Let us examine and probe our ways, And let us return to the LORD.
Over the years in ministry teaching, encouraging, and sometimes counselling others, and in my own experiences of walking with chasing after knowing Him in His full character there is one answer I often have to ‘rest’ in when the “because” of a situation is beyond my finite reasoning and understanding:
Because He is God, and I am not!
You see He holds eternity past in one hand and eternity future in the other. In His omniscience He knows, sees the purpose, and the end from the beginning and cannot be surprised. In His omnipotence He is fully able! I could go on. His compassion and mercy and love do not fail us… even when the calamity around us seems to say otherwise. Jeremiah put it this way.
[Lamentations 3:22-28, NASB95] 22 The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. 23 [They] are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 24 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.” 25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. 26 [It is] good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD. 27 [It is] good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth. 28 Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid [it] on him. …
Great news and encouragement. Do note verse 28…. “Since He has laid it on him.”
His hand is working with us in and through all things. We often don’t see it because we aren’t looking for it or because we simply don’t fully comprehend the nature and character of our God and Father.
Jeremiah opens what we read in Lamentations 3 with an outline of horrible experiences of affliction and darkness. Then speaks of the mercies of God. Just after 3:22-28 referenced above He speaks of our seeking God and seeing Him in the midst of “stuff” He has laid on us.
[Lamentations 3:28-33 NASB95] 28 Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid [it] on him. 29 Let him put his mouth in the dust, Perhaps there is hope. 30 Let him give his cheek to the smiter, Let him be filled with reproach. 31 For the Lord will not reject forever, 32 For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness. 33 For He does not afflict willingly Or grieve the sons of men.
He has a purpose in all things. Perhaps that is why we are told ” in everything give thanks for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” ( 1 Thessalonians 5:18), not give thanks for all things but in them give thanks. Perhaps it is what the Philippians (2:12-15 were told to “work out your salvation (from persecution) with fear and trembling [for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for [His] good pleasure. 14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing; 15 so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,” and why James (1:2) told us to “2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,…”
Another prophet who was told to take to wife an unfaithful harlot wrote this
[Hos 6:1-3 NASB95] 1 “Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn [us,] but He will heal us; He has wounded [us,] but He will bandage us. 2 “He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, That we may live before Him. 3 “So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth.”
Let us do just that. Let us know, let us press on to know the fullness of God and Father. We are in Him in Christ Jesus, and He is in us by the Holy Spirit in all things