Great is your faithfulness!

Years ago when I was still a young christian I came across a story of the famous missionary Hudson Taylor who served in China with the then China Inland Mission (now called the OMF International). The story described a time when Hudson Taylor, then the General Director of the mission, was suffering from personal tragedies of losing his wife and children to sickness, and losing many missionaries from the revolution taking place in China. He was distraught and wondered if he did not have enough faith, or that he was not living the kind of holy life God required of him. He then received a letter from his missionary friend John McCarthy, who penned these words that have since etched into my heart through all these years:
"How then to have our faith increased? Only by thinking of all that Jesus is and all He is for us: His life, His death, His work, He Himself as revealed to us in the Word, to be the subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith … but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need; a resting in the Loved One entirely, for time and for eternity." (page 117 of Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret)

It always makes sense to me, but only after a time of quiet reflection. What's the point of asking for more faith from an unfaithful person? And how do I know if someone is always faithful unless I get to know the person more and more each day, as I do when I read the scripture every day.

Today's scripture reading is in Lamentations chapters 3-5 and Hebrews chapter 10:19-39 (read it from biblegateway.com). Here I am reminded of these famous verses (and the hymn that goes with it):
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.”
(Lamentation 3:21-24)

The background to this was supposed to be about Jeremiah, the prophet, who was deeply affected by the destruction of his people and the religious establishment as the consequence of God's punishment on their sins. Yet in the midst of this discouragement, Jeremiah found faith in God and His faithfulness and drew strength from it.

Just as a side note, when I looked around for more information about the Book of Lamentations I found this from Wikipedia:
Jeremiah's authorship is no longer generally accepted; nevertheless, it is generally accepted that the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon in 586 BCE forms the background to the poems. The book is partly a traditional "city lament" mourning the desertion of the city by its god, its destruction, and the ultimate return of the divinity, and partly a funeral dirge in which the bereaved bewails and addresses the dead. The tone is bleak: God does not speak, the degree of suffering is presented as undeserved, and expectations of future redemption are minimal.

However, Biblehub, Gotquestions.org and Biblestudytools all still assume the authorship by Jeremiah.

Now the passage in Hebrews also calls us to persevere in faith: Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:23)

And if we are all suffering as a group of believers: And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24-25)

The focus of our response to suffering should be that of encouraging each other to love one another and to love our neighbors even more! And do not stop going to church! I know how easy it is that when I am discouraged I get into self-pitying and do not want to meet with others, fearing that I have nothing good to share with others! The one thing we can all look forward to is the second coming of Christ!

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)

Jesus' life and death in history is what is giving me the confidence to face the troubles ahead.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, 
Look full in His wonderful face, 
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, 
In the light of His glory and grace. (Hymn: (Youtube)Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus)