Lamentations 1 Devotional

Sorrow and Confession Together

“The LORD is righteous, yet I rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity.”Lamentations 1:18 (BSB)

Lamentations opens in ruins. Jerusalem, once full of people and great among the nations, sits alone like a widow, reduced to slavery (1:1). She weeps through the night, and among all her former friends there is no one to comfort her (1:2). The refrain returns throughout (1:9, 16, 17, 21). Her children have gone into captivity (1:5).

The poem does not blame chance. The LORD has brought this grief because of her many sins (1:5), and the city herself confesses that the LORD is righteous and that she rebelled against his command (1:18). Yet she keeps speaking to him. Again and again she asks the LORD to look at her suffering (1:9, 11, 20). The God who judged her is the only one she can turn to. That is what honest lament looks like: grief and confession brought together into God's presence. Jesus promised that those who mourn will be comforted (Matthew 5:4). You do not need to clean up your sorrow or hide your sin before you bring either one to him.

To think about: What sorrow or sin have you been keeping from God because you thought it needed cleaning up first?