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Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hello, thank you for listening to your Daily

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Speaker 1: Bible Verse, the podcast that examines one verse each day

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Speaker 1: to learn more about God and his will for us.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Carol McCracken, and after a short word

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Speaker 1: from our sponsor, we'll dive into today's Bible verses, Lamentations

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Speaker 1: three twenty two through twenty three. Today's Bible verses are

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Speaker 1: Lamentations three twenty two through twenty three. The steadfast love

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Speaker 1: of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to

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Speaker 1: an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

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Speaker 1: This past Sunday I saw something I'm still caring. A

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Speaker 1: man in her church is going through radiation for prostate cancer.

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Speaker 1: That fatigue is deep, the kind that settles into your

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Speaker 1: bones and does it left. A woman shared that a

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Speaker 1: brain tumor's back. She had just gotten used to hearing

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Speaker 1: all clear, just started to live like things were normal again,

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Speaker 1: and now she's preparing for radiation. Another man with Parkinson's

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Speaker 1: had knee surgery and his bladder didn't wake up. His

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Speaker 1: body isn't cooperating the way he needs it to. And

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Speaker 1: I watched as our church administrator helped him into the

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Speaker 1: car with dignity with patience, and then we stayed and talked,

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Speaker 1: not fixing, not rushing, just present. And if we're honest,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't feel like victory. It feels like reality. And

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Speaker 1: the deeper question underneath it is where is God when

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Speaker 1: nothing's going to get better. To understand the limitations three,

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Speaker 1: we have to understand the setting. This book is written

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Speaker 1: in the aftermath of Jerusalem's destruction in five eighty six BC.

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Speaker 1: The Temple's gone, the cities in bruins, the people are displaced.

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Speaker 1: This isn't personal inconvenience. This is a national devastation. In

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Speaker 1: chapter three, zooms in from the corporate outpouring of Greece

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Speaker 1: to a personal voice. The writer, likely Jeremiah, speaks in

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Speaker 1: the first person. Jeremiah was known as the weeping Prophet.

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Speaker 1: God called him to speak truth to a nation that

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Speaker 1: didn't want to listen. He warned of coming judgment, watched

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Speaker 1: an unfold, and then lived through the devastation himself. He

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Speaker 1: had a challenge to say the least, so when he

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Speaker 1: writes these words, he's not speaking from theory. Earlier in

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Speaker 1: the chapter he says, I am the man who has

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Speaker 1: seen affliction. He has made me dwell in darkness. My

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Speaker 1: strength is perished. This is disorientation, loss, emotional and physical exhaustion.

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Speaker 1: But then something shifts. In verse twenty one, this I

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Speaker 1: call to mind, and therefore I have hope. That phrase

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Speaker 1: called mind is important in Hebrew. It carries the idea

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Speaker 1: of actively bringing something back into focus. This isn't passive optimism.

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Speaker 1: This is a deliberate act of remembering truth in the

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Speaker 1: middle of pain. It's a choice. And then we get

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Speaker 1: to our verse. Because of the Lord's great love, we

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Speaker 1: are not consumed. For his compassions never fail. They are

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Speaker 1: new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. Now let's impact

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Speaker 1: this bit because of the Lord's great love. The Hebrew

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Speaker 1: word here is has said. Scholars suggest that this is

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Speaker 1: one of the richest theological words in the Old Testament.

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Speaker 1: It refers to God's committed, faithful love that is not

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Speaker 1: based on circumstances or performance. This is not God loves

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Speaker 1: you when things are going well. This is God remains

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Speaker 1: faithful because that's who he is. Then we're not consumed.

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Speaker 1: The Hebrew idea is not that suffering is absent. It's

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Speaker 1: that it's not finished. You off, You're still here. The

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Speaker 1: situation has not had the final word. That's a very

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Speaker 1: different kind of hope. Then his compassions never fail. The

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Speaker 1: word for compassion comes from a root word tied to

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Speaker 1: the womb, deep visceral mercy. It's not sympathy from far away,

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Speaker 1: its tender care, from the very core of God's being.

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Speaker 1: And never fail literally means they do not come to

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Speaker 1: an end. They are not exhausted by repeated need, which

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Speaker 1: matters because in seasons like this the need is constant.

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Speaker 1: And then this line, they are new every morning. This

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Speaker 1: is not poetry words, it's truth. God doesn't give you

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Speaker 1: strength for the entire journey all at once. He gives

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Speaker 1: you what you need for today, the man of principle

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Speaker 1: all over again, daily dependence, daily provision, daily mercy. And finally,

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Speaker 1: great is your faithfulness. That word faithfulness speaks to steadiness, reliability, firmness.

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Speaker 1: God isn't shifting with your circumstances. He's fixed, dependable, trustworthy.

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Speaker 1: So what's the writer actually doing here. He's not denying reality,

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Speaker 1: He's reframing it through remembered truths. Nothing has changed externally,

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Speaker 1: the city still destroyed, the loss is still real, the

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Speaker 1: pain is still present. But internally he anchors himself and

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Speaker 1: who God is. That's the teaching. Faith is not pretending

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Speaker 1: things are okay. Faith is choosing what you'll hold on

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Speaker 1: to when they're not. And that's what I saw one Sunday.

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Speaker 1: I didn't see instant healing. I saw people showing up anyway.

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Speaker 1: I saw quiet, courage and tired bodies. I saw dignity

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Speaker 1: and dependence. I saw someone take time not to solve

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Speaker 1: a problem, but to honor a person. That's what it

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Speaker 1: looks like to not be consumed, not untouched, not unaffected,

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Speaker 1: but not destroyed. And this is where this passage meets us.

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Speaker 1: When your body isn't cooperating, when the diagnosis returns, when

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Speaker 1: the situation drags on longer than you expected, you don't

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Speaker 1: have to force yourself into fake positivity, but you do

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Speaker 1: have to decide what you will call to mind. Will

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Speaker 1: you rehearse fear or will you bring back into focus

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Speaker 1: what's still true. God's love hasn't changed, his mercy has

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Speaker 1: it run now, His faithfulness hasn't shifted, and his mercy

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Speaker 1: for you today is enough for today. So here's your takeaway.

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Speaker 1: Even if you remember nothing else, you may be living

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Speaker 1: in a season where nothing's resolved. But God's faithfulness is

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Speaker 1: still fully present. So don't measure God by what hasn't

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Speaker 1: changed anchor yourself and what hasn't changed about Him. Because

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Speaker 1: even in the not yet is mercies already here. Will

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Speaker 1: you pray with me, dear Lord in heaven. Sometimes life

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Speaker 1: is just hard, there's no denying it. In this world

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Speaker 1: that we're in. Our bodies break down and they don't

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Speaker 1: work as well as they used to at one time,

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Speaker 1: and it's no fun sometimes, and it's not fair. The Lord,

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Speaker 1: you're done tone with us, and sometimes that's hard to hear.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes we just need to take that next great step

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Speaker 1: if we can, and sometimes we need somebody to help

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Speaker 1: us do it. And Lord, some of us age better

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Speaker 1: than others, and things happen to even young bodies. Lord,

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Speaker 1: but you're with us. You are with us, You allowed it,

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Speaker 1: and we are not alone. Help us to remember that

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Speaker 1: Manna principle you provide ideally in your precious name, We

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Speaker 1: pray omen mm hmm