Dealing With Conflicting Ideas

Introduction

So last week we talked about dealing with God’s apparent silence in the midst of our affliction. We talked about being reminded of His promises during those seasons of silence.

However we cannot deny that even doing this creates a dichotomy within us. There is His promises against our experiences.

So even after being reminded of His promises, there will still be internal strife and struggle.

We experience moments of deep internal conflict when faith and doubt, hope and despair, trust and fear are forced to coexist simultaneously. Lamentations 3:40-66 speaks to a people to are in the midst of such a conflict. It is a very difficult and altogether very real place to find yourself in, even as a believer.

If you recall John the Baptist sees Jesus and makes an extraordinary assertion; he exclaims “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” in so doing he is identifying Jesus as the awaited Messiah, the Son of Living God (John 1:29). Yet in the moments of great distress, while in prison awaiting perhaps his execution he sent word to ask Jesus if he is the one. (Matt 11).

This type of conflict will take place in your life and denying that it exists when it does not serve you any. So part of the process of healing, and I am going to sound like a broken record for the duration of this series, is

Acknowledging the Conflict (vv. 40-47)

Lamentations 3:40–47 LSB

40 Let us search out and examine our ways, And let us return to Yahweh. 41 We lift up our heart to our hands Toward God in heaven; 42 We have transgressed and rebelled; You have not pardoned. 43 You have covered Yourself with anger And pursued us; You have killed and have not spared. 44 You have covered Yourself with a cloud So that no prayer can pass through. 45 You have made us mere scum and refuse In the midst of the peoples. 46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. 47 Panic and pitfall have befallen us, Devastation and destruction;