When I was a child, one of my favorite pastimes was playing on the
teeter-totter in the nearby park. A kid would sit on each end of the board and
bounce each other up and down. Sometimes the one who was down would stay there
and leave his playmate stuck up in the air yelling to be let down. But the
cruelest of all tricks was getting off the teeter-totter and running away when
your friend was up in the air—he would come crashing down to the ground with a
painful bump.
Sometimes we may feel that Jesus does that to us. We trust Him to be
there with us through the ups and downs of life. However, when life takes a
turn and leaves us with bumps and bruises, it may feel as if He has walked away
leaving our lives to come painfully crashing down.
But Lamentations 3 reminds us that “the steadfast love of the Lord never
ceases; his mercies never come to an end” (v.22 esv) and that God is faithful
to the end even when everything seems to be falling apart. This means that in
the midst of our pain, even though we may be lonely, we are not alone. And
though we may not feel His presence, He is there as our trusted companion who
will never walk away and let us down!