Prayers Not Passing Through Lamentations 3:44

As Jeremiah continues his summation concerning God's manner against the people of Judah and Jerusalem, he has described the Lord as one who has covered them with anger, persecuted and slain them, and has not had pity toward them. In chapter three and verse forty-four we learn that Jeremiah believed that God was not hearing their prayers where we read:

You have covered yourself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.

The verse begins, “You have covered yourself with a cloud,...” When we use our imaginations with this portion of the verse, we might picture a huge cloud covering the skies like when a storm rises overhead. The darkness and thickness of the clouds allows not even the sun to be seen, and the ominous threat it poses makes most people run for cover. Jeremiah pictures God as “hedged, fenced about, and shut in” by this huge mass, and the overshadowing of it has shut off any from having access to Him.

The verse continues, “...that our prayer should not pass through.” The result of God being covered with a cloud is “prayer should not pass through”. The assumption is that the people are praying, and yet their prayers are not heard by God. Though they cry out to God, He does not hear them. The covering cloud has become a barrier to their words “crossing over” to the Lord. Not only are the people suffering at the hand of God, but their pleads to Him bounce off His clouded integument.

Have we ever felt like God was not hearing our prayers? Have we sat in the midst of great trials, troubles, and anguish and felt that our prayers were bouncing off the ceiling? Perhaps we have wondered if there was some sort of barrier preventing God from hearing anything we say. As we ponder this verse, let us keep in mind what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews said when speaking of Jesus in chapter seven and verse twenty-five:

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them.

Whenever we feel that our prayers are not making it beyond the clouds or ceilings above, let us remember that Jesus has full access before the very throne of God, and He is making “intercession” on our behalves.

Next time we will discover to what the Lord likens the people, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.

 

Until tomorrow...there is more...

 

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