Lamentations 3: Great Is Thy Faithfulness

“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.” – Lamentations 3:22-23 (NIV)

This is the most unlikely praise song in the entire Bible, because of the circumstances in which it was written.

The book of Lamentations was written in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem. Not the threat of destruction. The actual destruction: the city in rubble, the temple burned, the population either dead or marching in chains to Babylon. The writer, almost certainly Jeremiah, sat in the ruins of everything he had known and loved and had devoted his ministry to preserving, and he began to write. The first two chapters of Lamentations are among the most desolate poetry ever composed, a raw, unfiltered account of total loss.

And then, in the middle of chapter three, something shifts. Not the circumstances. The circumstances have not changed. The ruins are still ruins. The exile is still exile. The grief is still complete and real. But in the middle of the ruin, a declaration arrives that is so completely unexpected given what surrounds it that it sounds almost defiant: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

The declaration is not made because the morning looks good. It is made because the morning has arrived. That is the entire evidence: another morning has come. In the middle of a catastrophe that should, by every natural calculation, have consumed the people of God entirely, they are still here. Still breathing. Still capable of addressing God. The mercies are new this morning, which means God’s faithfulness survived last night’s ruins, and it will survive tonight’s as well.

This is the specific form of praise that the ruins require. Not the triumphant praise of the mountaintop. Not the grateful praise of the answered prayer. The declared praise of a person who has sat with the full weight of what has been lost and has chosen, in the middle of the sitting, to name God’s faithfulness not as a finished story but as a morning-by-morning reality, present even in the ruins, new even after the worst nights.

Think about the situation in your life that most closely resembles Jeremiah’s ruins. The loss that has not yet been restored. The relationship still broken. The ministry still diminished. The hope still deferred. In the middle of that specific situation, say it out loud: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies are new this morning. Great is His faithfulness. Not because the ruins have cleared. Because another morning has come. And that is enough to say it with.

Prayer

Father, I say it from the ruins today, because the ruins are where this declaration was first made: great is your faithfulness. Not because everything is resolved. Because another morning has come, and your mercies are new in it, and your steadfast love has not been consumed by what consumed everything around it. I declare it. I believe it. In Jesus’ name, amen.