It's Friday! I am so glad that today is a new day. I have failed so many times in my short life and I have a promise from my Father that says there is hope still for me. I read Lamentations 3 today and though the text had nothing to do with me or my life, I felt as if I were in the place that the prophet was in enotionally. This is where I have been since my son was born and yet the scripture gives me hope right around verse 23. And that excites me.
Lamentations 3
1 I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
2 He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
3 Surely He has turned His hand against me
Time and time again throughout the day.
4 He has aged my flesh and my skin,
And broken my bones.
5 He has besieged me
And surrounded me with bitterness and woe.
6 He has set me in dark places
Like the dead of long ago.
7 He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
He has made my chain heavy.
8 Even when I cry and shout,
He shuts out my prayer.
9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
10 He has been to me a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in ambush.
11 He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12 He has bent His bow
And set me up as a target for the arrow.
13 He has caused the arrows of His quiver
To pierce my *loins.
14 I have become the ridicule of all my people--
Their taunting song all the day.
15 He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drink wormwood.
16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel,
And covered me with ashes.
17 You have moved my soul far from peace;
I have forgotten prosperity.
18 And I said, "My strength and my hope
Have perished from the Lord."
19 Remember my affliction and roaming,
The wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul still remembers
And sinks within me.
21 This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
22 Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24 "The Lord is my portion," says my soul,
"Therefore I hope in Him!"
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
26 It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man to bear
The yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone and keep silent,
Because God has laid it on him;
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust--
There may yet be hope.
30 Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him,
And be full of reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32 Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
33 For He does not afflict willingly,
Nor grieve the children of men.
Thank you Lord for loving me as you do. I look forward now to being changed from the inside out. Help me walk in a mannor that is worthy of the call that you have on my life. Help me to pursue you wholly with all of my heart.
Bill Scott, Sr.
