Lamentations 3:37 - Meaning and Application

To receive the comforts promised to the suffering in the verses before this one, we must also do the duties that belong to suffering people. If we do those duties, we may taste those comforts. Here the prophet teaches us first to see and admit God’s hand in every trouble that comes to us, whether personal or public (Lamentations 3:37, 3:38). This truth helps calm our hearts under affliction and makes affliction serve a good purpose in us.

Whatever people do, it is God who rules over it. Who is the one who speaks and it comes to pass, if the Lord has not commanded it? People can do nothing except according to God’s plan, and they have no power or success unless it is given from above. A person may plan his way, as James says, and say, “I will do this or that” (James 4:13), but the Lord directs his steps in another way than he intended, unless what he planned was already included in God’s purpose (Proverbs 16:9; Jeremiah 10:23). The Chaldeans, the Babylonian army, said they would destroy Jerusalem, and it happened, not because they said it, but because God commanded and sent them to do it.

People are only tools in the hands of the great God. He uses them and directs them as he pleases in the rule of this world. They cannot carry out any plan without him. Whatever happens in people’s lives, it is God who orders it. Do not evil and good come from the mouth of the Most High? Yes, they do. More strongly, the original asks whether both this evil and this good do not come from the Most High. Is this not what he has appointed for us? Yes, it is. If we want peace in our hearts under our troubles, we must apply this truth to our own case.

Can I receive comfort from God’s hand, and then refuse the trouble he also sends? That is Job’s reasoning (Job 2:10). Whether we are healthy or sick, rich or poor, successful or frustrated, it is all under God’s ordering. Every person’s judgment comes from him. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. He forms the light and creates darkness, as he did in the beginning. All the events of providence, meaning God’s wise care and rule over all things, come from his own purpose. Whatever is done, God directs it. What he speaks, he carries out, and all his purposes are fulfilled easily and completely.

We must also not quarrel with God for any trouble he lays on us (Lamentations 3:39). The prophet seems to check himself here for the complaints he made earlier in the chapter, where he sounded as if he were blaming God for being harsh. “Am I right to be angry? Why am I fretting like this?” People who have spoken too quickly against God must, when they think again, blame themselves for it. Since God’s providence is sovereign and rules over all, the right question is, “Why does a living man complain?” (Psalm 39:9).

What God does, we must not speak against. Those who blame their own lot are really blaming the One who assigned it. The people suffering in exile had to submit to God’s will in all their pain. We may pour out our complaints before God, but we must never complain against God. Why should a living man complain, a man being punished for his sins? The reasons are strong.

We are men, and we should act like men. Shall a man complain? We are rational creatures, not beasts. We should think with reason, look upward, and look ahead, and we can find enough there to quiet our complaints. We are men, not children who cry over every pain. We are men, not gods. We are subjects, not masters. We are not in charge of ourselves, and we must obey and submit. We are men, not angels, so we cannot expect to be free from trouble as they are. We do not live in that world where there is no sorrow, but in this world where sorrow is everywhere. We are men, not devils. We are not in their miserable and hopeless condition, but we still have comforts they do not have.

We are living men. By God’s good hand on us, we are still alive, though we are dying day by day. Should a living man complain? No. He has more reason to thank God for life than to complain about the burdens that come with life. Our lives are weak and deservedly forfeited because of sin, and yet we still live. The living, the living should praise God, not complain (Isaiah 38:19). As long as there is life, there is hope. So instead of complaining that things are bad, we should encourage ourselves with hope that they may get better.

We are sinful men, and what we suffer is the just punishment for our sins. In fact, it is far less than our sins deserve. We have little reason to complain about trouble, because much of it is our own doing. Our own evil corrects us (Proverbs 19:3). We have no reason to argue with God, because he is righteous in what he does. He governs the world, and he must uphold the honor of his rule by disciplining those who disobey. If we are suffering for our sins, then we should not complain. We have other work to do. Instead of grumbling, we should be repenting. If we want proof that God is reconciled to us, we must show that we are seeking to bring our hearts into agreement with his holy will. If we are punished for our sins, wisdom says we should submit and kiss the rod, meaning receive the discipline humbly. If we keep resisting God, he can punish us even more. But if we yield to him, then though we are disciplined by the Lord, we will not be condemned with the world.

We must also aim at what God means to do in our affliction, which is to bring sin back to our attention and bring us back to himself (Lamentations 3:40). These are the two things our troubles should lead us to do. First, we should search ourselves carefully and think back over our lives. Let us search and test our ways. We should examine what our ways have been, and then judge whether they have been right and good. It is like searching for a hidden criminal who is running and hiding, and then testing whether he is guilty or not guilty. Let conscience do both jobs, searching and testing, and let it speak honestly. It should make a careful search and a fair judgment.

We should test our ways so that, through them, we can test ourselves. Our state is not judged by our wishes, but by our steps. And it is not judged by one isolated step, but by our ways, by the goals we pursue, the rules we follow, and whether the temper of our minds and the pattern of our lives fit those goals and rules.

When we are suffering, it is the right time to think carefully about our ways (Haggai 1:5). We should see what is wrong, repent of it, and change for the future, so that the suffering serves its purpose. In times of public trouble, we are often quick to look at other people’s sins and blame them. But our real task is to search and test our own ways. Each of us has enough to do at home, asking, “What have I done? What have I added to the trouble?” If each person reforms, then the whole community will be improved.

We must also turn back to the Lord in a sincere way. He has turned against us because we have turned away from him. We should return to him by repentance and a changed life, as our rightful owner and ruler. We have been better off with him than without him, so we should come back to him now. This must go with honest self-examination and grow out of it. We search our ways so that we may turn from their evil and return to God. David followed this same path: “I thought about my ways, and I turned my feet to your testimonies” (Psalm 119:59).

We must also offer ourselves to God, along with our best feelings and service, in the fire of devotion (Lamentations 3:41). When we are in trouble, we should look up to God as the God of heaven, far above us and ruling over us with unquestionable authority. The heavens rule, so we must not argue with them, but accept God’s rule and submit to it.

We should pray to him, trusting that we will receive mercy from him. That is part of lifting up our hands to him, a common prayer gesture and sometimes a way of referring to prayer itself, as in “Let the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice” (Psalm 141:2). It shows that we ask for mercy and are ready to receive it.

Our hearts must go with our prayers. We must lift up our hearts as well as our hands, and pour out our souls as well as our words. God looks at the heart in prayer, and in every other service. What good is a sacrifice if the heart is missing? If our inward feeling does not match our outward words, we only mock God and fool ourselves.

To pray is to lift the soul up to God (Psalm 25:1), as to our Father in heaven. And the soul that hopes to be with God in heaven forever will keep learning that way through regular acts of devotion, and will keep pressing forward in it.