784_Restore us to yourself, O Lord (Lamentations 4-5)
Lamentations 5:19-22 But you, O Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures to all generations.
20 Why do you forget us forever,
why do you forsake us for so many days?
21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored!
Renew our days as of old—
22 unless you have utterly rejected us,
and you remain exceedingly angry with us.
After a devastating storm, homes lie open to the elements, with roofs torn open, furniture damaged or lost, and years of memories obliterated. If someone were to ask what the survivors wanted restored first, they might name their homes.
However, when a close and dear relationship is disrupted, the one thing most desired is the restoration of the relationship with the loved one.
This echoes the cry we hear at the end of the book of Lamentations. Amidst terrible suffering, the devastation of Jerusalem, the exile of the rich and the noble, the starvation of the survivors, Jeremiah laments before the Lord to relieve his bursting heart.
But the deepest desire of this godly man is not the restoration of Jerusalem. His cry is, “Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored!” This shows us what restoration really means.
Lamentations chapter 4 confronts us with the terrible consequences of Judah’s rebellion against God. The precious things of Zion have become worthless. The wealthy are reduced to poverty. The leaders who once enjoyed honor now wander in the streets. The tender children are starving. The young men faint with weakness. Jeremiah does not hide the horror of what has happened.
Further, he faced the real problem beneath it all. Jerusalem had not simply suffered because of random misfortune. They had brought judgment on themselves by turning away from God. Their prophets and priests had sinned. Their leaders refused to trust the Lord, putting their faith in political alliances and their own cleverness. But every defense failed in the end. As Lamentations 4:17 says, “Our eyes failed, watching for a nation to save us; in our watching, we watched for a nation which could not save.”
As always, they painfully discovered that nothing could save them except God. None of the things they trusted in were of help in the day of disaster.
This is one of the painful mercies of God’s discipline. He may allow the things we depended upon to fail so that we rediscover what we should have known all along: nothing and no one can take His place.
Faced with such failure, we immediately plead with God to restore what we have lost. We pray for the restoration of health, finances, relationships, opportunities, reputations, security, or peace. And there is nothing wrong with such requests, such dependence upon God.
However, we need to look in the mirror first, and acknowledge our own sin that contributed to the situation. bringing these needs before God. All too often, God earnestly desires that we turn our hearts to desire what really matters – restored relationship with Him who is the source of every good gift.
And thus, in chapter 5. Jeremiah begins with the words, “Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace!” He pours out the suffering of the people before God. Their inheritance has been given to strangers. Their homes are gone. They are weary, hungry, and oppressed. He acknowledges the consequences of their sin and the failures of previous generations.
But then he turns from the ruined city to the eternal God. Lamentations 5:19 says, “But you, O LORD, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations.”
Everything around them has changed, but God has not changed. His throne remains unshaken, his sovereign power still controls all things. He remains Almighty God, and his kingdom knows neither end nor limit.
And because God remains, they pray: “Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored!”
They do not ask him to restore their wealth, or their city, or to help them get back all that they have lost. Their prayer is very different.
Asking God to restore our circumstances is quite different from asking him to restore us to Himself. One is concerned primarily with what God can give us. The other is a longing for the joy of being at one with God again.
We want our lives to be comfortable again. We want God to wipe out the consequences of our wandering. We want things to be as they were before. But all the while, God is pulling our hearts to really know him, to stop wandering, to love him with all our hearts and our strength. He longs for us to desire the one thing needful – his constant presence in love.
For this is the purpose of divine discipline. He does not merely lash out in his anger to punish us. Rather, as a loving Father he intervenes in painful circumstances to draw us back from our destructive path. As Hebrews 12:10 says that God disciplines us “for our good, that we may share his holiness.”
God’s discipline has restoration at its heart.
When God exposes the sin in our lives, He is not merely trying to make us feel guilty. When He reveals the emptiness of something we have trusted, He is not just abandoning us to despair. When He allows our false security to collapse, he does not want to destroy us.
Rather, he longs that we find the security of his everlasting arms underneath us when we fall. He longs for us to learn to trust him and him alone.
And hence this prayer. The prophet recognizes that what his people need most is to turn their hearts back to God. For though we have wandered, we can come back to our real home. We may have become distracted from our true hope, but we can remember the Lord in the land of exile. We have loved other things than him, but we can again trust in his faithful love for us.
For Jeremiah was crying out for restoration to the same God who allowed Jerusalem to suffer. God’s discipline did not mean he had erased his covenant with his faithful ones. Rather, through suffering they came to once again recognize their need of him above all.
For our greatest problem is not our broken circumstances. It is that we are sinners, cut off from our Creator. We need to be reconciled with him.
And that is what Jesus Christ was sent to do. Romans 5:10 assures us, “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” Through Christ, God made a way for his wanderers to come back into his presence.
In our troubles, let us not ask for our prosperity and comfort to be restored. For what is our profit if we lose our own soul despite gaining the whole world? Let us seek first of all to have our relationship with God restored.
We may lose something we deeply value, or see the weakness of what we depended on. Or we may simply come to see that our hearts have slowly drifted from our first love.
Let us ask Him to restore our hearts to Himself. Let us pin every hope and every joy on him, our treasure. For then we will find more than we could ever lose, in the joy of the Lord’s love.
We may not immediately see everything set right. We may not understand our suffering. Lamentations itself ends with a cry, with no neat answers.
But it ends with the right Person.
For having God, we have all things. But when we wander from him, nothing else we recover can truly satisfy.
The prayer to be restored to him is the prayer of a wise and humble heart. So today, whatever burden of sorrow we carry, let us bring it before the Lord. Let us trust Him to restore whatever of our circumstances He chooses to restore. But let us never stop until he restores us to himself. God bless
Reflection Questions
What circumstances, desires, or disappointments can reveal where you have been looking for security apart from God?
Why is restoration of our relationship with God more important than the restoration of the things we may have lost?
How can you practically make “Restore us to yourself, O LORD” the prayer and desire of your heart in the season you are presently experiencing?
Let us pray
Heavenly Father, even when You discipline us, You do not abandon us, but call us back to Yourself. I know that whatever you do, you do in love. You cast out whatever has taken your place in our lives. In your grace, you turn our hearts fully toward You. Teach us to desire You above Your gifts and Your restoration above every earthly blessing. Restore us to Yourself, O Lord, that we may truly be restored. In Jesus Christ’s name. Amen
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