Hope includes lament
Let’s think about lament for a moment. What pops into your mind? Complaining? Weakness? Something we shouldn’t do? Webster’s defines it as a passionate expression of grief and sorrow. But lament is not particularly popular in either Christian or secular cultures, is it? We were taught as children not to complain. And Christians should be thankful in everything, right?
Yes. But when it comes to God, no.
I think lament is an essential part of hope.
A depressed life knows lament intimately. Our bodies speak it in our stiff joints and red, puffy eyes. Some days we wake up with our minds screaming How long, O Lord? When will this go away?
Yet it’s common to hide unsavory feelings from others. We become experts at hiding. But for Christians, there is an added danger. If we stuff down our lament in prayer and fellowship with God, we might start to stay away from him altogether. It’s exhausting to hide and pretend. If we aren’t authentic and bring our full selves to God, we may stop coming to him at all.
A lot of us love the Psalms in the Old Testament for a myriad of reasons, but one is because the authors don’t hold back. They pour out their hearts through songs and poems and verse. We see bare-boned, striped back people seeking God with whatever they have left. The psalms are often heart-pounding, face-reddening, pulse-racing words slung out from wrecked souls.
And if we feel wrecked, God wants to hear about it.
As far as I can tell, the psalmists were faithful followers of God. I don’t think they were people who deconstructed their faith to the point of disintegration or revelled in their sin or ended up denying the existence of God. They were real Christians committed to the real Yahweh.
They struggled and doubted and ached not outside of their relationship with God, but within it.
And then, after good, long cries, they turn their eyes from the pain and unto a faithful God. In this practice, we see that lament fosters hope because our needs remind us of our need for the gospel.
I’m reading through the bible this year with a group of people from our church. We are using the Bible recap daily reading plane and podcast ( I LOVE IT SO MUCH.). Recently, host Tara Leigh Cobble reminded listeners of the pattern I’m talking about in Psalm 43.
Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him my salvation and my God.
Cobble points out that the psalms don’t pick a lane. People don’t either cry or praise God. They cry AND praise him.
Friends, let’s do this. Give God your whole self wherever you find yourself today. Claim your creation and then look to your creator. In Psalm 43, King David is downcast and distraught, he lays it out on the Lord and then preaches the gospel to himself.
We might feel the need to censor ourselves with others, but resist the temptation to do it with God. He needs no trigger warning. Our omniscient, steadfast, and good God can’t be triggered. He is the creator of the universe. But he is also a tender, intimate father who knows and loves us fully. Psalm 139, verse 2 says he knows when we sit down and rise up. And what else? He discerns our thoughts from afar. Follow the thread. God knows what are thoughts and feelings even if we think we are doing a good job at hiding them.
Hiding equals hurt. When we ignore lament because we think it makes us look needy or nonspiritual or weak, we are pushing Jesus away from us. We are blowing air into a ripped up balloon that cannot lift. And we are not engaging with the full gospel. Christ came to save us. Our lament reminds us of this.
My husband Sergei says if you ever want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. And what do we see in the gospels? The perfect, sinless Christ lamenting. He laments in the garden before the guards arrest him. “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:38-39). He prays similar prayers two more times, and then, having left his concerns and pain with his father, he stands, goes forward, and dies for us on the cross.
Lament is a crucial part of our relationship with God and essential in our efforts to heal. We’re not called to hide. Our prayer closets are not to be confused with a courthouse or a quiet room. Jesus didn’t exchange his life for ours so that we can pretend with him or put on a show.
Lament fosters hope. It is a holy language that helps us walk in the new life we’ve obtained in Christ. Mark Vroegop says that “laments are not cul-de-sacs of sorrow, but conduits for renewed faith.”
Cry. Raise your voice. Share your confusion. Tell God your plan differs from his. Give all your throaty tears and red-faced frustration to him. The absence of lament in our prayers isn’t godliness. It’s a falsity.
Withholding our whole selves from God is risky business. Everything in our lives is meant to bring glory to God, including our lament. Nothing and no one else can handle it. And no one else should.
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him my salvation and my God.
Please accept this free print
(created by Andrea Maxwell Design)
of Psalm 121:8 as my gift to you.
You are never alone!
(Just click and print :). Thanks Andrea!