Pastor Dave Gudgel – Things Happen for a Reason – Lamentations 3

Lamentations 1:5 The LORD has brought her grief because of her many sins. Her children have gone into exile, captive before the foe.

Lamentations 1:1 How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave.

Lamentations 3:40 Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD.

Take some time to: 1. Reflect

• What needs to change in my relationship with God?

• What needs to change in my relationship with others?

• What does God want me to learn?• What does God want me to keep doing?• What does God want me to stop doing?

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures,

speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain:

it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

– C.S. Lewis

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”(1 Samuel 3:9)

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”(1 Samuel 3:9)

“Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind.” (Psalm 26:2)

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”(1 Samuel 3:9)

“Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind.” (Psalm 26:2)

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is

any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)

Lamentations 3:40 Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD.

Take some time to: 1. Reflect2. Return

Luke 15:13-14,17-18 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need… When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.”

“This was the beginning of the end of…our being at loggerheads. It had not been a

good time. But this began to snap us out of it. Dallas and I had to come together and

deal with our pettiness. It shook us up and brought us back to the reality of what is

most important…” – Jane Willard

Lamentations 3:14,17,18 I have become a laughingstock to all my people, their mocking song all the day. And my soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness. So I say, "My strength has perished, and so has my hope from the LORD."

Lamentations 3:19-21 Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.

Lamentations 3:21-23 This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

Take some time to: 1. Reflect2. Return3. Remember

Take some time to: 1. Reflect2. Return3. Remember

Pastor Dave Gudgel – Things Happen for a Reason – Lamentations 3