Crying Out 

As we recover the practice of lament, we will meditate on the second movement of lament: cry out your complaint.

Cry Out Your Complaint

After turning to God, each of these psalms cries out with a complaint—a defining characteristic of lament. This involves naming the problem being seen or experienced and expressing it vividly before God. That might sound untrusting, perhaps even ungodly. But this is far from unbelief or ungodliness—this is a righteous response to the wrongfulness of life’s circumstances. It’s a refusal to wish away suffering, stiffen our upper lip or “be strong” in the face of sin and suffering.

We see this in Psalm 13 when David cries out to God when he seems absent in his life: 

How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? (Psalm 13:1-2).

Again, David feels distance from God in Psalm 22 and questions why he is forsaken (Ps 22:1-2)—words which Jesus himself takes up as his own on the cross (Mt 27:46). In Psalm 88, the psalmist expresses a sense of grief that is evidently unbearable:

You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths … my eyes are dim with grief. (Ps 88:6-9).

Crying out our complaints with heart-wrenching honesty is not only okay—but godly.

Psalms of lament show us that crying out our complaints with heart-wrenching honesty is not only okay—but godly. Even in the depths of the pit, the loss of a loved one, or a moment of despair—God anticipates and hears each of our cries.

Come Holy Spirit, hear our hearts today.