18/08/2026
HOPE IN THE MIDST OF SUFFERING
Are you going through a difficult season?
Do you feel overwhelmed by something—or perhaps by many things—in your life? Are there moments when the challenges you are facing make it difficult to stay hopeful?
If that is you, firstly, know that there is no judgment here. And secondly, know that you are not alone.
I can relate to this deeply in this season of my own life, and I suspect many others can too. So if you are walking through a difficult season right now, I want to share something with you that I hope might bring you even a small measure of hope and encouragement.
Jeremiah knew what it was like to suffer
I have a lot of sympathy for the prophet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah was given an incredibly difficult assignment from God and, in many ways, an incredibly difficult life. His mission was to proclaim God's message and warnings to the people of Judah. But, tragically, very few people listened.
Instead, Jeremiah was mocked, rejected and abused. His own family and neighbours turned against him. Priests and kings rejected his message. People from his hometown of Anathoth plotted against his life.
At one point, the priest Pashhur had Jeremiah beaten and placed in public wooden stocks. King Jehoiakim rejected God's warnings by cutting up and burning the scroll Jeremiah had written with his scribe Baruch. Later, royal officials accused Jeremiah of weakening the morale of the people and had him thrown into a deep, muddy cistern, where he was left to die until an Ethiopian eu**ch named Ebed-Melek intervened and persuaded the king to rescue him.
Jeremiah didn't simply experience hardship—he experienced rejection, fear, violence, isolation and profound loss.
And Jeremiah was very real about how all of this affected him.
The Scriptures don't present him as someone who calmly sailed through suffering without being affected by it. We see glimpses of his anguish, fear, exhaustion and despair, as well as his honest conversations with God.
I would never want to casually diagnose someone from ancient Scripture, but it is striking how much of Jeremiah's writing resonates with what we might recognise today as the effects of prolonged trauma, anxiety and overwhelming stress.
“My soul is downcast within me”
Lamentations is traditionally attributed to Jeremiah and was written in the aftermath of Jerusalem's destruction and Judah's exile to Babylon in 587 BC.
The words he writes in chapter 3 give us an extraordinary glimpse into what was happening inside him:
I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
2 He has driven me away and made me walk
in darkness rather than light;
3 indeed, he has turned his hand against me
again and again, all day long.
4 He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
and has broken my bones.
5 He has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship.
6 He has made me dwell in darkness
like those long dead.
7 He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
he has weighed me down with chains.
8 Even when I call out or cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer.
9 He has barred my way with blocks of stone;
he has made my paths crooked.
10 Like a bear lying in wait,
like a lion in hiding,
11 he dragged me from the path and mangled me
and left me without help.
12 He drew his bow
and made me the target for his arrows.
13 He pierced my heart
with arrows from his quiver.
14 I became the laughingstock of all my people;
they mock me in song all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitter herbs
and given me gall to drink.
16 He has broken my teeth with gravel;
he has trampled me in the dust.
17 I have been deprived of peace;
I have forgotten what prosperity is.
18 So I say, “My splendor is gone
and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”
19 I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
20 I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
Jeremiah 3:1-20 (NIV)
Can you feel the pain in those words?
Jeremiah feels trapped. He feels surrounded. He feels as though there is no way out. He cries for help but feels as though even his prayers are being shut out.
He speaks of bitterness, hardship, having no peace, and his soul being downcast within him.
This is a man who knew suffering.
And there is something deeply comforting to me about that.
Not because I want Jeremiah—or anyone else—to have suffered. But because Scripture reminds us that we are not the first people to walk through seasons where life feels overwhelming, painful and confusing.
There were people who came before us who knew what it was like to hurt deeply and still try to hold on to God.
And then, right in the middle of all this anguish, Jeremiah writes something remarkable.
“Yet this I call to mind”
After twenty verses of despair, something changes.
Jeremiah doesn't suddenly pretend everything is fine. His circumstances haven't changed. Jerusalem is still destroyed. His people are still in exile. The suffering is still real.
But he deliberately turns his mind towards something else.
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is young.
28 Let him sit alone in silence,
for the Lord has laid it on him.
29 Let him bury his face in the dust—
there may yet be hope.
30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,
and let him be filled with disgrace.
31 For no one is cast off
by the Lord forever.
32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.
33 For he does not willingly bring affliction
or grief to anyone.
34 To crush underfoot
all prisoners in the land,
35 to deny people their rights
before the Most High,
36 to deprive them of justice—
would not the Lord see such things?
Jeremiah 3:21-36 (NIV)
I love that opening sentence:
“Yet this I call to mind—and therefore I have hope.”
Jeremiah doesn't deny his pain. He doesn't minimise what has happened to him. He doesn't pretend that everything is okay.
Instead, in the middle of his suffering, he reminds himself of what is still true about God.
And perhaps that is something we need to do sometimes too.
What never changes
Jeremiah reminds himself of some beautiful truths:
God's love and compassion are new every morning.
Even when yesterday was incredibly difficult, God's compassion hasn't run out today.
God is faithful.
Our circumstances may change. Our emotions may change. Our sense of hope may rise and fall. But God's faithfulness does not depend on how we feel.
God is our portion—our source and sustenance.
Sometimes we look for something to make everything better, something that will finally give us security or peace. But Jeremiah reminds himself that ultimately, God Himself is enough to hold on to.
It is okay to wait quietly for God.
Sometimes there is nothing we can do to fix the situation we're in. We can't change the circumstances, make another person behave differently, or see what is coming next.
Sometimes all we can do is wait.
And waiting can be incredibly difficult.
But waiting isn't necessarily doing nothing. Sometimes waiting is an act of faith—trusting God when we cannot see what He is doing.
God is compassionate.
Jeremiah doesn't believe that God is indifferent to suffering. He reminds himself that God is compassionate and that His love is unfailing.
God sees injustice.
There may be things happening in your life that nobody else sees or understands. There may be things that feel unfair, painful or deeply wrong.
But God sees.
He has not missed what is happening to you.
If this is your season
I don't know what you are going through right now.
Maybe you're exhausted. Maybe you're anxious about what comes next. Maybe you're dealing with circumstances you never expected. Maybe you're carrying something privately that very few people know about.
I can't take that away from you.
If I could, I would.
I don't have a magic solution, and I don't want to offer you shallow words that pretend difficult things aren't difficult.
But I do want to remind you of something that hasn't changed.
God is still good.
He is still compassionate.
He is still faithful.
He still sees you.
He is still with you.
And you do not have to walk through this alone.
David understood something similar when he wrote in Psalm 23:
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”
Notice that David says “walk through.”
The valley is not necessarily the destination.
There are seasons when all we can see is the valley around us. We can't see the other side. We don't know how long it will last. We don't know exactly what God is doing.
But God is there.
And perhaps that is the hope we need to hold on to today.
Not necessarily the hope that everything will be fixed immediately.
Not the promise that tomorrow will suddenly be easy.
But the hope that God has not left us in the valley.
So, friend, if that is the only thing you can hold onto today—the only little nugget of hope you can find—then hold onto it.
God loves you.
His compassion has not run out.
His faithfulness has not failed.
He sees you.
He is with you.
And when tomorrow morning comes, His mercies will be there again.
“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.”
Maybe today, that's enough.
And perhaps tomorrow, when you wake up, you can remind yourself of it again.
His mercies are new every morning.
Great is His faithfulness.
