How do you view Pain? Lamentations

Lamentations 3:31-33 (NASBStr)

For the Lord will not reject forever,

 For if He causes grief,

Then He will have compassion

According to His abundant lovingkindness.

 For He does not afflict willingly

Or grieve the sons of men.

To fully grasps these verses in Lamentations chapter three you have to fully understand the book of Lamentations in general and the theme of chapter three specifically.   God is doing a "terrible" work in the nation of Israel.  By terrible we mean that God is carrying out the punishment He told them He would do if they disobeyed His Word (Deuteronomy 28-31).   God had warned them.  Now it was time to pay.   The book of Lamentations is the lament, the morning of the punishment.  They had sinned, they are now paying, so Jeremiah laments and morns for them in their pain ... his shared pain.  While reading the book you can't, at times, tell if Jeremiah is talking about the nation or himself because the pain is so personal for him.   Four times, however, in the third chapter Jeremiah speaks of hope.  Once he says that all hope has perished.  Then it happens.  He, like Job of old, stops looking at the pain and starts looking at the God who is allowing the pain.  When he sees only the pain and the blight there seems to be no hope.  However, when he remembers the character of God hope springs eternal.   He sees the pain in the context of God's great love.   He knows "God will not reject" forever.  He knows "will have compassion."   He knows "He does not afflict willingly."    When Jeremiah looks vertically he can handle and put into context what he feels and sees horizontally.  When we are in the midst of trouble we tend to only see the trouble.   However, when we get our eyes and hearts and feelings off the pain and look toward the God of compassion and of great faithfulness we see God's will doing a great work in our lives.   It might be due, like the Israelites, to disobedience.  It might, like Job, due to Satan's attacks.    Who knows.  God does not afflict or grieve the sons of men willingly.   He is faithful and any affliction of His people will not be forever.   God is faithful.