Lamentations 2 Devotional

Where to Run in Ruin

“Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.”Lamentations 2:19 (BSB)

Lamentations 2 is one of the hardest chapters in the Bible. The Lord himself has become like an enemy to Jerusalem (2:5). He has torn down walls and palaces, rejected his own altar, and abandoned his sanctuary (2:7). Children faint from hunger in the streets and die in their mothers' arms (2:11-12). Famine drives people to unthinkable acts (2:20). The poet will not soften any of it.

He is clear about why. The city's prophets offered empty visions and never exposed her guilt (2:14), but the LORD has done exactly what he decreed long before (2:17). His word does not fail, in judgment as in mercy. Then comes a surprising command. Rise and cry out in the night, the poet urges, empty your heart before the Lord, and lift your hands to him for your children (2:19). The place to run is toward the God whose hand is heavy, because he alone can help. No grief is too raw to bring to him, and no prayer has to be polished first.

To think about: What grief or fear could you bring honestly before God tonight, instead of holding it back?