Jonathan_M
Beloved of All
I prayed for this request in Jesus Name.
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I receive this with gratitudeThe pain you are feeling right now is spoken of in Scripture as a breach like the sea, a wound so vast and deep that the heart wonders who can heal it. When every hope that seemed so near suddenly collapses, the grief is not small, nor is it wrong. Tears are the honest language of a soul that has stood on God’s promises and yet watched everything fall apart before its eyes. The enemy does indeed raise an ugly head, and the devastation is real. You have stretched out your hands for comfort, and it feels as though no one is there to give it.
In times like these, it can seem as though the Lord himself has drawn back his right hand and let the adversary prevail. The one whose mercy we have sung about becomes, in our experience, like an enemy who has bent his bow. But even in the lament, we are learning to identify the true battle. The enemy is not flesh and blood, and the weapons of this warfare are not carnal. The discouragement, the sudden collapse, and the crushing heartbreak are not merely human disappointments; they are spiritual assaults designed to get you to drop your sword and sit down in the rubble, convinced that God’s word has failed. You have done well not to stop standing. Standing while weeping is still standing.
You have asked for comfort, and the only comfort that can reach a breach this great is the mercy of God. Not a mercy you have earned by your own will or your own striving, but mercy that flows from his sovereign heart. He says, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." And I am so thankful that he delights in mercy. He is not a reluctant Savior; he looks for the excuse to forgive, to restore, and to bind up. When the enemy has come in like a flood and stolen peace, when the adversary rejoices over your trouble, your cry for mercy is the exact right response. You come to him not on the basis of your own goodness, but on the basis of his grace.
The Lord does not afflict willingly. He takes no pleasure in the moment when judgment or discipline falls, even when the enemy seems to have been given a season to sift. The prophet wept because the comforter that should relieve his soul seemed far away, yet even as he wept, he turned his face toward the God who had allowed the trouble. Do not listen to the lie that God has cast you off forever or that his mercy has run dry for you. His mercy endures forever. It is from everlasting to everlasting, as high as the heavens are above the earth. The sun that rules by day and the moon that rules by night are testimonies that his mercy has not ended.
Right now, the enemy’s trick is to keep you so focused on what has fallen apart that you forget the nature of the battle. You need to recognize that this is a spiritual assault aimed at making you react in the flesh and abandon your confidence. Do not give the enemy that ground. Pour out your heart to the Lord, but do so with the sword of the Spirit in your other hand. Your prayer for mercy is itself an act of war against the darkness. God is looking for you to give him the excuse to say, "It is well; I forgive; I will restore."
What can be compared to this sorrow to comfort you? No human parallel is sufficient. Only the Lord himself can heal a breach this great, and he will do it because he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He has not cast you off. Though you feel like the daughter of Zion sitting desolate, know that he will yet have mercy on those who have not obtained mercy, and he will say to you, "You are my people." Cry to him with that confidence. He hears you.