Reading… and Thinking

Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Offer complaint in view of his sins?
Let us examine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the LORD.

— Lamentations 3:39-40 (NASB)

It’s very easy, when you aren’t the one suffering, to counsel the sufferer to accept the Lord’s will. (Take Job’s “miserable comforters”, for example.)

These verses from Lamentations would be pretty hollow if uttered by somebody (like me!) who hasn’t been called on to suffer very much. But they gain a lot of force in the context. Jeremiah begins the chapter by saying, “I am the man who has seen affliction…” He goes on to recount some of the trials he had gone through.

So when he asks, “Why should anyone complain in view of his sins?”, we’re more inclined to listen. First of all, he was an exceptionally upright man. And second, he had really suffered, and was continuing to suffer. But he does not take a “poor me” attitude. Of anyone then alive, it might be argued that he didn’t deserve to suffer. But he doesn’t whine about what he has gone through. His lament is for his people, for Jerusalem, for the temple—not for himself.

Jeremiah understood, as he read in the Psalms, that “there is no one who does good, not even one” (Psalm 43:3 & 53:3). As Paul would later write, “all have sinned and fall short” (Romans 3:23). Jeremiah was aware of his own failings, even though they are not recorded for us to read. And in light of the sin in every man and woman’s life, he recognized that none of us have grounds for complaining. If we are still alive, then we have gotten better than we deserved.

Contrary to popular assumption, Jeremiah does not focus on the negative. (His name has entered the language: a “Jeremiah” is someone who always looks on the bleak side; a “jeremiad” is a long and detailed complaint of ill-treatment. Nothing could be more unfair to the real man.) Jeremiah did deliver the warnings God sent him to deliver – but in addition he looked beyond, to the deliverance that God would also bring. Jeremiah’s warnings were dire, but the hope he wrote about was inspiring. It was reading Jeremiah that gave Daniel hope! (Daniel 9:2)

And in this passage in Lamentations we see the same thing. He talks about the suffering he has endured, but he says that the Lord “does not afflict willingly” (verse 33), and he concludes there is no ground for complaint. Rather, there is motivation: “Let us examine and probe our ways, and let us return to the Lord!”

When we look around us, there is plenty of suffering. We may have some of it in our own life. How do we react? Does it cause self-examination? Recognition that we have received less than our sins deserve? Resolve to stay near to the Lord? This is how Jeremiah reacted. There is no higher compliment than to be called a “Jeremiah”!