Psalm 77. The Psalmist opens his song with a tired but desperate cry. His song then begins to take an inquiring tone, asking a series of questions to God. Only as he wrestles with his questions does he come to a place of firm resolution. “I will remember God and His deeds,” he sings. It’s here that he encounters God’s greatness, His deliverance of His people through the Red Sea and and His tender care upon the “flock” of Israel. His song ends with a greater and deeper realization of God’s character and with hope.
How far do we as congregations and individuals go in singing our own respective “Psalm 77″ songs? Especially in our Western 21st century setting. Do we know how to lament well? How often do we even cry to God? Do we come to a place of questioning? And then remembering Him and His deeds? Often times, we tend to look to our jobs, vacations, errands, shopping, video games, etc. to somehow distract (”medicate”?) ourselves from this lamenting process. Imagine how we could deepen our walk with Him if we only allowed oursleves to lament before Him in all the dark nights of our souls.
November 14, 2008 at 1:57 pm |
I don’t think we know how to lament well at all. I think that not only do we not know how to lament, but most of us think that if we lament then something is wrong us. Christians are supposed to be joyful, happy, content, even in the midst of suffering. Which is true. But we should also give ourselves the freedom to lament before the Lord. With church as large and at times impersonal as it is, it can feed this idea that we’re not supposed to have problems when we are at church.
What keeps me from lamenting oftentimes is pride. To get to a point where I can lament first requires me to admit to myself that I am not in control and do not have my life together. I do not like to admit to myself or anyone else that I am a broken individual without Jesus. But the freeing truth is that we are utterly broken and wounded people, and that is how God wants us. It is just not how we want ourselves.
Question. There is a lot of good teaching out there that says we should meditate on God’s promises and not be hopeless and fearful yadayada. Some of which comes straight out of the psalms. “why are you downcast o my soul, hope in God” or something like that. When is it okay to allow ourselves to lament and question when scripture says we should be hopeful and put our trust in the Lord? Are they two different things?
November 26, 2008 at 4:03 pm |
So true! Our generation misses out so much when we leave out lamenting in our personal and corporate worship.
As for your question, I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive … lamenting and questioning vs. trusting and hoping. I do believe in many ways, they’re cyclical. Lamenting leads to trusting which sometimes leads to more lamenting which leads to deeper hoping, on and on. We saw this in the Psalmist where he went from a place of initial trust, to weeping, to greater trust. I think the best example of where we see this is in Job. He trusted God, but then faced hardships that made him lament, which made him trust more, but then later on lamented more. I believe our laments and questions only make our trust that much more deeper and substantive.
In terms of my own personal journey, sometimes, I find myself quickly dismissing and disengaging from my laments so that I can rush into the promises. But the more I do this, I find that I become more robotic/automatic in my prayers and worship life and less human. I’m focusing more on what I “ought to” pray for and seek– rather than what is really going on inside of me. I need to be more truthful to Him with what is really going on inside. This helps my prayers and worship (my psalms) to be authentic and genuine.
Just on aside, it’s amazing to me that our God would include all our laments AND questions (and all the confusion and doubts that go with them) in His perfect Word, to be fused into eternity. Wow!