Lamentations 5:17-22: a reflection

17For this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are dim: 18for the mountain of Zion, which is desolate. The foxes walk on it. 19You, LORD, remain forever. Your throne is from generation to generation. 20Why do you forget us forever, and forsake us for so long a time? 21Turn us to yourself, LORD, and we will be turned. Renew our days as of old. 22But you have utterly rejected us. You are very angry against us.

Lamentations ends not with triumph but with raw, unresolved grief. Our heart is faint, the writer says, our eyes grow dim, over the ruin of everything they held dear. He even voices the hard question: Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us so long? And yet, in the midst of this desolation, he clings to one anchoring truth and one aching prayer: You, O LORD, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations. Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old.

Notice how the sufferer prays here. He does not paper over his anguish; he voices it honestly, even the feeling of being forgotten and forsaken. But he anchors himself on what remains true even in the ruin: you, O LORD, reign forever. And out of that, he prays the deep prayer of the desolate: Restore us to yourself. He knows that the deepest restoration is not the return of his circumstances but a return to God himself; restore us to yourself, and then we shall be restored.

That prayer is a gift for our own seasons of desolation. When everything has fallen and we feel forgotten, we can, like this sufferer, hold both our honest grief and our anchor: you, LORD, reign forever. And we can pray his prayer: Restore us to yourself. The deepest need in any ruin is not first that our circumstances be fixed, but that we be restored to God, drawn back to him. Bring your grief honestly to God, anchor on his unshaken reign, and pray the prayer of the desolate: Restore me to yourself, O Lord, and renew my days.

Lord, from the depths of ruin the sufferer clung to you: you reign forever, and prayed, Restore us to yourself, that we may be restored. When everything has fallen and I feel forgotten, help me hold both my honest grief and that anchor, that you reign forever. And teach me to pray his prayer, knowing my deepest need is not first that my circumstances be fixed but that I be restored to you. Draw me back to yourself, and renew my days.