“Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Lamentations 3:22-23 (NIV)
Welcome to November.
We begin a new month with a new theme: Close to His Heart. For the next thirty days we are going to sit with Scripture one passage at a time and let it do what God’s Word always intends to do, which is to draw us nearer to Him. James puts the invitation simply: “Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8). That is the heartbeat of this month. Not more religious activity, but a closer walk with the God who has already come near to us in Jesus.
And we start in an unexpected place. Not in a psalm of celebration, but in the book of Lamentations.
“Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
These are some of the best-loved words in the Bible. They are printed on mugs, cards and bedroom walls. But they were first written in rubble.
Lamentations is a collection of five poems written in the aftermath of 587 BC, when the Babylonian army besieged Jerusalem, broke through its walls, burned the temple and carried its people into exile. The book does not soften any of it. It describes hunger, grief, children fainting in the streets and a city that sits “like a widow” (1:1). Tradition links the poems with Jeremiah, though the book itself does not name its author. Whoever held the pen had seen the worst.
The structure of the book is remarkable. Four of the five poems are acrostics, with each verse or group of verses beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter 3 is the most intense of all: three verses for every letter, sixty-six verses in total. It is as though the writer is grieving from A to Z, refusing to leave anything out. And then, close to the centre of the book’s central poem, comes today’s verse. The structure itself is preaching. In the middle of the devastation, hope.
Look at the three words that carry it.
The first is “great love.” The Hebrew word is hesed, one of the richest words in the Old Testament. Translators struggle to capture it: steadfast love, loving-kindness, loyal love, covenant faithfulness. Hesed is love that has bound itself by promise. It is the love of a God who said “I will be your God” and does not walk away when His people fail. In the Hebrew it is actually plural, literally “the LORD’s loving-kindnesses.” Not one act of love, but a continuous stream of them.
The second is “compassions.” The Hebrew is rachamim, and it comes from the word for a mother’s womb, rechem. It is the tender, deep-down mercy of a parent who cannot bear to see their child in pain. When Isaiah asks, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?” (Isaiah 49:15), he uses the same family of words. These are the compassions the writer says “never fail.” They are never used up and never run out.
The third is “faithfulness,” emunah. It speaks of firmness and reliability, something you can lean your full weight on. It belongs to the same family as our word “amen.”
So in the middle of the ruins, the poet looks up and says: God’s loyal love has not run out. His tender mercy has not been used up. And He is still the One I can lean my whole weight on.
Now let me guard this carefully, because this verse is often quoted in a way that skips the chapter around it. The writer does not arrive at hope by pretending. The first twenty verses of chapter 3 are some of the darkest in Scripture. He says God “has walled me in so I cannot escape” and that “he shuts out my prayer” (3:7-8). Hope arrives at verse 21 with a deliberate act: “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.” He chooses what he will remember.
That matters for us. Faith does not require you to deny your grief. The Bible gives a whole book to lament, which tells us that honest sorrow brought before God is a form of faith, not a failure of it. If you are carrying something heavy into November, you do not need to dress it up. Bring it as it is. And if what you are carrying includes low mood or anxiety that will not lift, please speak to someone, and do not be afraid to see your GP. Seeking help is not a lack of faith. God often meets us through the people and provision He has placed around us.
But notice also that the writer does not stay in the lament. He calls something to mind. He preaches God’s character to his own soul. Lament and hope are not opposites in Scripture. Lament is often the road that leads to hope.
And here is where the gospel shines through this ancient poem. Lamentations is honest that Jerusalem’s suffering came as judgment for sin. The question underneath the whole book is this: how can a holy God keep showing mercy to a people who have broken covenant with Him? The New Testament answers that question in a person. Jesus stood over the same city and wept (Luke 19:41). Then, outside its walls, He carried judgment Himself. At the cross, the judgment that should have consumed us fell on Him, so that mercy could be new for us every morning. “We are not consumed” because He was.
That is why the morning mercy of God is not wishful thinking. It has been purchased. Hebrews 4:16 invites us to “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Every new morning is another invitation to receive what Christ has secured.
So what does it look like to begin November close to His heart?
It starts with what you call to mind. You will wake up tomorrow with something already in your head: yesterday’s mistake, a conversation that went badly, a bill, a test result, a worry about someone you love. You cannot always choose your first thought. But like the writer of Lamentations, you can choose your second one. “Yet this I call to mind.”
Here is a simple practice for the month. Before you check your phone in the morning, read these two verses out loud. Then name one specific concern and hand it to the Father in Jesus’ name. Not your whole life, just one thing. Then open His Word, even if only for a few minutes.
Do that for thirty days and you will discover what the writer of Lamentations discovered in the ruins. The mercy really is new. The faithfulness really is great. And the heart of God is far closer than your circumstances suggested.
Welcome to November. Let us draw near together.
Reflection
1. What are you carrying from October into November? Name it honestly, then write down one truth about God’s character that you will “call to mind” about it.
2. Lament and hope sit side by side in Lamentations 3. Is there a sorrow you have avoided bringing to God because you felt you had to sound more positive?
Prayer
Father, thank You for bringing me into a new month. Thank You that because of Your great love I am not consumed, and that Your compassions never run out. I bring You honestly what I am carrying from October, and I will not pretend it is lighter than it is. Yet today I call to mind that You are faithful. Thank You for Jesus, who wept over Jerusalem and then carried judgment for me, so that Your mercy could be new for me every morning. Holy Spirit, draw me close to the Father’s heart this month. Give me a hunger for Your Word and help me to walk with You one day at a time. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Declaration
His mercies are new this morning. I will call to mind His faithfulness, and I will draw near to the heart of God this month.
Pastor Ras
All Nations Community Church
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