How
Read: Lamentations 1:1-6 How lonely sits the city that was full of people! (v. 1) The original Hebrew title for the book of Lamentations is also the book’s first word: How.
Ben Van Arragon September 1, 2023
When God is silent, faith is hard. The book of Lamentations offers language for times when God is silent. When you feel alone in your sorrow. When you can’t hear God answering your cries. Do you struggle to sense God’s presence in difficult times?
Lamentations is a lament for the destroyed city of Jerusalem, after the exile of the people of God to Babylon. It is unique among the Old Testament prophetic writings in that, for the entire book, God is silent. Instead of God’s word to the people of Israel, it is the words of the people to God—words of longing, grief, and repentance, full of unrequited pain and unanswered questions.
In this 15-day series, read the book of Lamentations. Pour out your most difficult emotions in prayer. Listen for God’s silence. When God is silent, seek answers in the rest of the Bible, where God answers abundantly.
Read: Lamentations 1:1-6 How lonely sits the city that was full of people! (v. 1) The original Hebrew title for the book of Lamentations is also the book’s first word: How.
Read: Lamentations 1:7-11 Jerusalem remembers . . . all the precious things that were hers. (v. 7) As I get older, I find myself troubled by regrets: failing to savor my
Read: Lamentations 1:12-16 Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. (v. 12) When I was a new pastor, I learned much from my mistakes. One hard lesson
Read: Lamentations 1:17-20 Zion stretches out her hands, but there is none to comfort her. (v. 17) Years ago, I watched a television program that featured a man beginning the process
Read: Lamentations 2:1-5 He has bent his bow like an enemy. (v. 4) In the years leading up to the exile, God identified himself as Israel’s husband and characterized their idolatry
Read: Lamentations 2:6-10 The LORD determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion. (v. 8) In the film Polish Wedding, a once-gentle husband flies into a jealous
Read: Lamentations 2:11-16 My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns. (v. 11) It’s not easy being a prophet. Jeremiah’s ministry coincided with the decline and fall of the nation
Read: Lamentations 2:17-22 Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! (v. 19) During their “empty nest” years, my grandparents cared for foster children. Many of them
Read: Lamentations 3:1-15 He bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. (v. 12) Following September 11, 2001, a few prominent Christian leaders were quick to assign
Ben Van Arragon is an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church in North America. After twenty years of congregational ministry, he now serves his denomination as a pastor wellbeing consultant in Grand Rapids, Michigan.