 | Lamentations 2:11 "Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city."
Few things in life are more delicious than being able to say, "I told you so!" Humble pie doesn't taste good to the person eating eat, but it sure does smell tasty when you are cooking it up for someone else! Aren't those statements true if you are honest? If anyone ever had a right to say "I told you so," it was Jeremiah.
Jeremiah gave God's warning to a rebellious people, yet they did not hear a word he said. In fact, Jeremiah got more sympathy and support from Babylon than he did from his own people! (See Jeremiah 39:11-12; 40:1-4.) Jeremiah put himself on the line and spoke for God, even when other prophets were not saying what obviously needed to be said. I cannot think of anybody in the Bible that could relish saying the words "I told you so" more than Jeremiah could. Yet in Lamentations 2:11-13, his heart was grieved for their situation. You will find the same theme throughout the entire book of Lamentations-after all, it is a book of lamenting.
I must admit that if I were Jeremiah, I would have loved to bake up a large helping of "humble pie" for God's people! They were getting what they deserved, but you will not find Jeremiah's heart or lips ever crying "I told you so!" Suppose you and I were at the Grand Canyon, and after ignoring my repeated warnings of not getting too close to the edge, you drop several hundred feet to your death. Once they are able to send your carcass back home, I have the privilege of speaking at your funeral. Imagine in my eulogy if I leaned over your casket, pointed my finger, and exclaimed, "I told you so!" Now, you may have that coming, but that would be out of place at your own funeral! The same was true for Jeremiah and God's people in Lamentations.
If we are compelled by God and motivated by our concern for people, then the same thing that motivates warning will motivate comfort later on. When someone is wrong, and I want to make that right, it often becomes personal to me. In other words, if you are doing what's wrong, I want you to get clobbered for it! But if you have a clobbering coming, God will take care of that, not me.
If my desire is to help people do right, then I have the freedom to not say "I told you so!" when they do wrong. Galatians 6:1 says, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness. . . ." It may be delicious to serve "humble pie," but the Bible gives us a great example of meekness in Jeremiah. It takes a different kind of courage to comfort than it does to warn. Both are important. If I am motivated on one side of calamity to warn people, then I should be motivated just as easily on the other side to comfort those in need of help.
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