The doctor confirms your fears: the cancer has returned. Or your hope is crushed by the news of a miscarriage. For some of us, it’s rising to a new day only to be met by the dark and familiar clouds of depression. You mourn the disclosure from a friend that they’ve been abused. Or perhaps it’s arriving home to tell your family that you’ve lost your job: hopes dim, and anxiety rises. Maybe it’s the toll of war, flood waters raging and constant destruction that fills your newsfeed. In moments like these, how would God have us pray?
Through lamentation. God has given us a model of prayer for these exact situations—the ones that hurt the most. In fact, this kind of prayer saturates large portions of the Scriptures. It’s more than forty per cent of Psalms; the central theme of the book of Lamentations; and is modeled for us by Jesus when he cries out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
This form of prayer is called lament: the honest expression of our sorrows to God. And tragically, lament has been lost from the vocabulary of many of us today.
Lament has long been the practice of the people of God when they’re at the end of themselves. It’s also how God himself grieved the injustices of this world when he walked among us in the person of Jesus.
Lament is a practice that we need to recover. As we round out these final days in the Season of Asking in Prayer, we will meditate on the four movements of lament: turning to God, cry out your complaint, appeal for God to hear and respond, and confess your trust.
Turn to God
The first feature of lament is an address to God. The direction of the prayer matters here; it’s not grumbling to others—it’s intentionally coming before God in prayer. Anyone can cry, grumble and complain—but only the righteous offer their cries, grumbles and complaints as prayers to the Living God. The difference between the two is the direction. Notice how this is expressed in the opening verses of these three psalms;
“How long, LORD?” (Psalm 13:1)
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1)
“LORD, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you.” (Psalm 88:1)
Psalm 13 and 22 begin by bringing a question before God, Psalm 88 with an acknowledgement of the salvation God offers. But did you catch the common thread?
They all turn to God first.
Come Holy Spirit, help us turn our hearts to You today.
Smitten With Goodness 