Merciful, Compassionate

Lamentations 3:32-33

After feeling alone and isolated, we are now hopeful. We now have seen that the Lord will not cast us off forever. He is with us, and He will relieve our pain.

The next two verses, the two verses focused on in this article, bring comfort. Comfort on how the Lord is compassionate, merciful, and purposeful. They also bring up a question, a question that will be answered in the following verses and in following articles.

Lamentations 3:32 says, “Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.” Don’t worry, we will come back to the first part of this verse. For now, though, let’s focus on His compassion and mercy.

Every human thinks that we deserve better than we actually do. Some are better than the rest of us at recognizing our unworthy state, but we all fail in this area to some degree. I say that, because I am sure that several of us will read this verse and question God’s goodness. We will think, “How is God compassionate and merciful after putting Jeremiah through so much pain?” The reason we question His goodness is because we think we deserve something from Him.

We are all sinners. We have done, will do, and can do nothing worthy of His mercy and compassion. Just one sin condemns us. That is why Jesus had to die on the cross for everyone. That is every single person from Adam until now, and all those born in the future. He is merciful towards us every day and we are sinful every day.

Jeremiah recognized this. That is how he could write that He is merciful and compassionate. He saw it. He experienced it. He knew it. Despite the horrors Jeremiah saw and endured, he still recognized the goodness and mercy of God. If he could see it, so can we.

Moving on to verse thirty-three we read, “For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” Now we can look back at the beginning of verse thirty-two which says that He is the One Who causes grief. This shows us that God is in control. We can see that in the book of Job where we see Job attribute his afflictions to God correctly (Job 1:21-22). This was after the devil had asked God if he could attack Job and God granted it. God was still the One who was in control when Job was losing his wealth and all his children. There is never a time that God renders control to another.

Why then would God choose to afflict? He does not want to do it according to verse thirty-three, and yet He still afflicts us. The truth is it is what is best for us. He always does what is best for us (Romans 8:28; Jeremiah 29:11) even when we don’t understand how or why. Jeremiah was not just caught up in the middle of God’s just wrath on Israel. He was there for a reason and a purpose. We saw previously in Jeremiah 1 that God specifically called him to be prophet during this dreadful time in Israel’s history. It was no mistake that Jeremiah had to suffer at this time.

But here we again see the compassion and love of God. He does want to afflict us. Despite our sinfulness and despite our worthlessness (meaning, He does not need us for anything but simply chooses to love us) He does not want us to hurt. He does not want to see us suffer. He does not afflict us willingly. But He loves us enough to put us through trials and hardships because it is what is best for us.

We will not always know why we need to suffer. If God chooses to show us, which He does sometimes, then we will see His ultimate plan and answer our why. If He does not choose to show us, like Job, who had no idea why he suffered, then we must accept it with faith. Jeremiah likely did not know that his sufferings would bring so much hope to the lonely and depressed, but God did. And though Jeremiah suffered for our sake in some way, God was still merciful and compassionate, walked alongside Him, and brought him incalculable hope.

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