“For the Lord will not cast off for ever: But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.”
The Refining
Lamentations is written from the wreckage of Jerusalem’s destruction, as bleak a setting as scripture offers, and it is precisely here that this tender line appears. God does not afflict willingly. The word carries the sense of reluctance, a Father who does not delight in the pain his discipline or his allowed trials produce.
This corrects a picture some carry of a God who inflicts suffering with cold indifference, unmoved by what it costs the one going through it. That is not the God of this passage. Even in the middle of real, deserved judgment on a real, unfaithful people, the text insists on his compassion, not as an afterthought but as his true heart.
This does not mean the grief is not real, or that God removes it on request. The verse holds both: he does cause grief, and he does not do it willingly, and compassion according to the multitude of his mercies follows close behind. Sovereignty and tenderness are not opposites here. They sit in the same sentence.
Whatever affliction you are carrying today, know this about the heart behind it. Not cold. Not distant. Reluctant to cause it, and quick with compassion the moment it has done its work.
In the Fire
- Notice any picture you carry of God as cold or indifferent to your pain.
- Read this passage as a correction to that picture, specifically and personally.
- Receive his compassion today, even in the middle of unresolved grief.
Prayer
Lord, I have sometimes pictured you as distant from what this costs me. Correct that picture. You do not afflict willingly, and your compassion is not far behind. Amen.
Carry this today
He does not afflict willingly. His compassion follows close behind.