Everlasting Consolation

The book of Lamentations was written from the ruins of Jerusalem after the city had been burned, and in the middle of its grief comes this: "It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not." The next line says, "They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness." The word worth noticing there is "new." It describes a supply of mercy that has to arrive again each day.

That is a little like the way encouragement works for most of us. Somebody says the right thing on Tuesday, and it holds you up until Thursday. Then you are awake at midnight, going over the same problem again and wondering why the lift did not last. Encouragement like that rarely lasts. It was a good sentence, and good sentences wear off.

Here Paul prays for comfort of a different shape, and the word is worth stopping on: "everlasting consolation." He roots it in something already done, because God "hath loved us." That love is finished, with nothing for you to try out for. Then look at what Paul asks that comfort to do, because it is not what people expect comfort to be for: "Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work." To stablish means to make steady and firm. Paul is praying that they will be put back on their feet and set going again, which is more than feeling better. A comfort that leaves a person sitting down is not what he asked for.

So go back to the ruined city, where mercy had to arrive fresh each morning, and it did. What Paul asks for adds something to that. This comfort is rooted in a love God has already given, so it does not depend on what you can feel on the morning you cannot find it. The good sentence somebody said on Tuesday will wear off. This love will not, because God settled it before you woke up.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 319 is Another Man's Servant (Romans 14:4).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna