What a serious and sober portion this is!  We read in Lamentations 3:40-42, “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.”

Jeremiah, the writer of this book, and a prophet, begins this chapter by stating, “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.” (Jeremiah 3:1-3). He, himself, had not deserved that wrath.  The anger of God was brought upon this sinful nation of Israel, but Jeremiah identifies himself completely with them. Because of their rebellion, the Israelites were in a place of suffering the wrath of God.  Jeremiah speaks of himself as one who is smitten by the rod of God’s wrath…the one that hath seen affliction. 

As we consider verses 40-42, we see that:

Verse 40 is a call for self-examination and repentance.

Verse 41 is a call to prayer.

Verse 42 is a call for confession. 

While this portion deals with the rebellious nation of Israel, we can correctly take this portion for ourselves if we have strayed from the path of obedience to the Lord.  Jeremiah’s call for self-examination reminds me of the words of the psalmist in Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”  For there to be any profit in self-examination, we must first ask the Lord to search our hearts so that we might properly know what is in our hearts.  We are told in Jeremiah 17:9-10 that, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”  How sobering to realize that there is nothing in us that is good or profitable.  Our own hearts will deceive us, making us think that we are good and of great worth.  How precious the thought that our dear Lord will search our hearts and reveal its deep sinfulness to us.  Then, and only then, can we truly realize our state and be led “in the way everlasting.” 

Indeed, before it is possible to repent and return to God, even before the desire to return is even stirred, a much less inviting action must be undertaken. The first and greatest hindrance to reconciliation with the Lord is our failure to recognize that any such reconciliation is necessary. 

The Lord’s promise to Israel was so precious.  We read in Jeremiah 24:6-7, “For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.”  The Lord’s promise to us, as believers, is just as precious.  The Lord tells us in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  May we be quick to realize this and “Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.”  (CC)  (639.2)