Rock Bottom

Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2026

Readings: Lamentations 3 | Psalm 143

Check out the Bible Project's video on Lamentations if you want a quick overview of what this book is all about.

Let's jump in: Lamentations 3 is the third of five brutally honest and heartbreaking poems. Jerusalem has fallen. The temple is rubble. All that they believed in, all that they knew as dependable and secure, was gone. "He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light" (Lamentations 3:2). Beyond the remorse, this lament gives us a gift; it is the reminder that God makes room for our darkest days, and for our complaints to be heard. And right here, in the middle of the anguish, something happens: "Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 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 3:21–23).

Lament and grumbling is not an offense to God. Quite the contrary. It's a theological statement of faith. Why would anyone grumble to God if they didn't believe that God was listening. It's feeble, but it's still faith. God can do a lot with just a little.

That pivot: "yet this I call to mind" is spiritually courageous. In fact, it might be part of the reason that God allows for calamity; to create discontent that prompts us to cry out to Him. The hope expressed is not naïve optimism; it is a deliberate, disciplined act of remembrance in the middle of devastation. Jeremiah the poet is not pretending things are fine. He is choosing to anchor his soul in what he knows to be true about God even when circumstances scream otherwise. This points us straight to the resurrection, the ultimate turnaround moment when God proved that darkness is merely the prelude to the emerging light of the dawn. No matter where you are right now, morning is coming.

Psalm 143 echoes that same sentiment of hope: "Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love" (Psalm 143:8). Two voices, one cry, and one faithful God who is always listning.

Devotional Prompts:

• When you are in a season of genuine grief or loss, what might it look like to "call to mind" God's faithfulness rather than simply pretending everything is okay?
• Where in your life do you need to make the courageous pivot from lament toward hope by choosing to remember who God is?

Prayer: Faithful God, even when our world feels like ash and rubble, Your mercies are not consumed. Meet us in our darkest valleys with the word of Your unfailing love, and let the truth of resurrection morning break through every shadow we carry today. Amen.