Lamentations 3-5: It is Good to Wait Quietly

We sing that old hymn, 'Great is Thy Faithfulness', but do we really know what affliction is?  Affliction like that which fell on Israel?  Starving children, bodies of young and old alike lying in the streets, anything of value is worthless.  The wealthy have become beggars, mothers so desperate they eat their own children, and priests and prophets alike have become untouchables.  Yet that is not the only thing the writer of Lamentations saw.  He looked around at the destruction surrounding him and he saw hope.

I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD. - Lam 3:`19-26 NIV

When the entire world, all we have ever known is crumbling, it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.