Biblical Lament

     The world is broken, things aren't fair, sad things happen, struggling happens, and that is all the reality of this world. This can be recognized by anyone. We realize that in this world sickness and disease happen, people are harmed or sinned against, and things happen that we wish would not happen. Grief and sorrow happen in this world. This past year, I was no stranger to struggling to the point where I wanted to quit. I wanted to quit life for a bit and just lay in my bed all the time. I wanted to give up and stop doing everything that was required of my grieving weary soul. I was just trying to get through and survive. Now I am in a place of processing it all. While going through the difficult season, I remember thinking this to myself: "Lord I have been through so many hard things that I feel like tried to break me, but Lord I have been through nothing apart from you who restores me". God gave me the strength to do the next small thing each day when the big things seemed too hard. 

    When I hear many Christians talk, they talk about freedom and praise, but they don't talk much about lamenting. I have been reading the book of Job in scripture, and I realize that Job cries out to God and brings the really difficult things to God. The psalmist is also not afraid to bring the deep struggling to God. I am now in that place, and I want to learn how to do it the way the Psalmists and Job have done it. Following their example in lamenting and crying out to God is important in working through healing from hard things. 

    One night this past week, I looked at Psalm 13 which is a Psalm of David. This psalm is a Psalm of lament written during a time when King David felt he was experiencing the absence of God in his life. I looked at this psalm and realized the basics of what King David was expressing through this psalm: he recognized the sorrow, he prayed for God to answer him, he recognized the truth of who God is, and he praised God. Lamenting is important, and praise is important. They are both important in our relationships with God. How can one praise God in the midst of suffering? I believe it comes through the truth we have and the hope of God's promise to redeem the world through the coming of Jesus Christ (the first coming and the second coming). 

    I believe when someone wrongs us, we need to go to God in prayer and our emotions. We need to present ourselves to God not cleaned up but in the midst of our emotions. Why? Because it is God who can cleanse and purify our hearts for forgiveness. I think it is so easy to fall into gossip when something upsets us, but we need to remember that God is all-knowing over the people around us. Lately, it has been easy to fall into that trap as a lot has been happening. We desire so much for answers to why people act in a hurtful way, but the truth is that God only knows the whole story. He gets the whole picture. When we cry out to God, we cry out emotionally to him. We cry out to God amid sadness, anger, or fear, which is where lament often takes place. We can't keep our emotions down as God wants us in our emotional states to go to him, not to clean ourselves up before coming to him. Matthew 11 talks about coming to him in our weariness and to receive rest through his gentleness. 

    Praying for God to answer us and waiting to hear him is important. David directly asked God to answer him. God answers our prayers according to his will. Receiving deeper clarity or an answer of our prayers may not always look how we expect it to look. When I look back on my life, the prayers I thought were unanswered at the time were actually being answered as I went through life during that time in ways I could never expect. God's plan will ultimately be done as his plan is good. Asking God to answer our prayers in lamenting is important because God will answer the prayers in ways we would not expect him to even amid deep sorrow. 

    The next part of the Lament in Psalm 13 is where David recognizes that he needs to "trust in [God's] unfailing love" Psalm 13:5. Through recognizing the truth of God's unfailing love and the gift of salvation, David can rejoice and praise God even when suffering in the situation that he was in. This shows the importance of truth in the midst of expressing our emotions. Our emotions may come from our present reality, but the truth of God is eternal. God knows the pain in our lives, and the grief in our hearts, but he also knows his plans in eternity. That is why we can worship him knowing that this life, and even our deepest longest struggles, are only temporary where God's love is eternal and salvation is eternal. 

    Bring your real raw emotions to God. Don't feel the need to clean up your life before going to God. Just go to him and realize that he will gently deal with your heart where you are at. Realize that God is not here to condemn you because you are struggling. He is here to be in a relationship with you and love you where you are. He loves you where you are at, but him loving you where you are at does not mean he will keep you there. For me, God loving me has been sending me friends who have prayed for me and helped me see the need to pray for those who wronged me, and God has also changed my heart for me to have compassion for those who have wronged me. Lamenting allows for us to realize the reality of grief and mourning, turn our eyes to who God is in the midst of suffering, and rejoice in the fact that our God is a Lord of hope and the situation we are in is very temporary even when it does feel very heavy.