The topic was chosen in advance. Like God does, He planned ahead to meet the need we didn’t know we would have.
Lament.
Every Thursday, we gather around meeting tables and computer screens, linking teammates from different places in a united voice of prayer. Prayer is the common language between the many different tongues represented at BCM International. At this weekly prayer meeting, we consider a topic – a facet of prayer or a spiritual discipline to soften our hearts before we collectively bring praise and petition to our Father in heaven.
Today, that topic was lament. We hadn’t covered this before.
Gratitude? It was center stage more than once.
Unity, prayer walks, solitude, encouragement – all covered – as they should be.
But prayers of lament were reserved for today.
God knew what the headlines would be.
He knew what images and words our eyes would see on social media.
He remembered the significant date prominently displayed on every calendar that brings emotions nearly as clearly as they did 24 years ago. He understood the weight our hearts would be carrying.
This world is broken, and with it, our hearts break.
His gift today was intentional time to explore what to do with this grief through lament. Over Zoom. And around a BCM conference table. In the regularly scheduled prayer time. In a time of deep grief, I’m thankful for the opportunity to look at lament.
In my own life, lament wasn’t a typical topic of conversation growing up. At some point, it was listed along with many kinds of prayer, but it’s not a place people typically chose to linger.
Maybe Christians steer clear of lament because we think it’s too close to complaint, that it can’t exist with more “godly” virtues like joy and gratitude. We believe the lie that if we have hope, we must gloss over the loss. Instead, we say trite things that are supposed to negate the pain but don’t truly heal what’s broken. We run quickly to the “joy, joy, joy down in my heart” without acknowledging that lament lives down there, too. We may be unintentionally saying if we trust God, the depths of grief and lament are places we don’t need to go.
Outside of Christian culture, it’s the opposite. We’re encouraged to not only feel everything personally but to also let those emotions validate actions and guide next steps. Culture says to let those heavy things define you. Things that grieve you give you permission to be their victim and validate responses.
But there is freedom through lament.
First for the Christ-followers, we need to see: joy does not exclude lament. Gratitude and grief are often intertwined. They reside in the same spaces. Tears of lament are as holy-beautiful as smiles of joy. Sometimes, the tears and repentance are required before the joy and freedom can come.
Lament is not something to be feared and avoided; neither is grief an emotion to which we need to fall victim and give control.
Lament is simply a tool to help us be honest with God – a gift that drives us back to Him.
In her book “One Thousand Gifts,” Ann Voskamp wrote, “Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty.”
When facing his nation’s sin, the author of Lamentations says to “Cry out to the Lord. Let your tears flow like a river day and night.”
Lament is not handing over the reins to hopelessness, nor is it glossing over grief to get to false happiness.
Instead, lament starts with what we see – something broken, something painful, something that’s not the way it should be. And from that perspective of this broken thing, we present what we see to God. Then, our view through broken eyes gets anchored in the truth of who God is – tethered to the perfect perspective and holy character He shows us in His Word.
Scriptural lament always circles back to the truth of God’s goodness and solid hope. David pens beautiful laments that end with him preaching to himself about who His God truly is. He forces himself to think in an eternal perspective rooted in truths that God is both sovereign and good.
In “The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook,” Adelle Ahlberg Calhoun wrote, ““Prayers of lament are ways to approach God with the realities of sorrow, frustration and angst that consume our fears.”
We can be honest. We NEED to be honest. This world is not as it should be.
God is not surprised when we tell Him that. He has been mourning this reality since His original “very good” creation was lost and broken all the way back in Genesis. We are in the middle. We are between that originally created garden in Genesis and the coming future Kingdom. Here, in between, the wholeness and perfection God intended is interrupted and marred by sin, death and brokenness.
Jesus wept when he encountered this in physical form.
He holds our tears in a bottle.
He is near the brokenhearted.
Until the day of the future Kingdom when every tear will be wiped from our eyes, we live in between. And the in between is broken. War, violence, oppression, hatred for others – in the form of bullets, knives, planes-turned-to-weapons, hate-filled voices and writings that forget the value of all humans made in the image of God.
Instead of letting our souls acknowledge the brokenness of our human condition and going to God with it in lament, some of the loudest voices have been making other humans the enemy. The hate only drives wedges deeper into injury – the exact opposite of healing what’s broken.
Lament reminds us: we – no, I – need hope and healing.
Lament includes trust that God can handle it all – my sin, my grief, my fears.
When we come face to face with the fact that we are broken and in need of healing, it requires us to go to the Healer. Each of us is guilty of sin; yet, when we bring that truth to God – He forgives.
Once we are healed, lament reminds us the world needs light. And we are the ones who need to shine it.
Only then, by going through the lament, can we emerge on the side of true joy, forgiveness and hope.
Only then can we forgive others and have compassion on them. They’re broken, too.
Only then can we see the enemy for who he truly is.
Only the real enemy benefits by the false belief that other humans are the enemy.
Only the enemy benefits when brokenness turns to hatred of other people.
Only the enemy benefits when social media posts made safely behind a screen inflict deeper injury.
The enemy wants the brokenness to be multiplied as a result of division, blame, and hate.
Lament is freedom. Instead of hate that injures and hopelessness that debilitates, lament acknowledges the depth of the problem and looks to God, His character, and His Word for the solution.
We can’t fix all the brokenness, but we can give our own brokenness to Him.
Lament places the problem in the arms of God. And it trusts Him to handle it.
Today especially, I’m praying that every darkness will drive Christ-followers to see the vital importance of being the light…
To see that our own hearts are broken and in need of God’s forgiveness and healing…
To have compassion on other humans whose hearts are equally broken and will only be healed by a God who endured suffering and darkness and death to bring us life and hope and light…
To firmly hold to a steady hope that is ours because God’s light will not be overcome by darkness…
To reflect His light and point people to the healing only Jesus brings.
To continue in Lamentations, the author goes on to describe himself with words like, “the man who has seen affliction,” “surrounded with hardship,” “weighed down,” “downcast soul.” But he interrupts his vivid descriptions of grief in chapter 3 with this truth: “But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Let the wails of lament drive us to the One who gives healing.
Let every need for lament prove the need for God’s people to be a light.