“Lament” is defined as “a passionate expression of grief or sorrow,”[1] and if this demonstrative form of prayer were an animal, it would not be domesticated. It’s not aimlessly crying over sorrow or making peace with despair, as despair is devoid of hope while lament demands it. Longing to see purpose produced from pain, lament believes God can bring good from excruciating evil meant to harm. Through brazen, goal-oriented language that implores God to act, lament fights the apathy of depression and unease of anxiety through hope and action. When loss pushes you to plumb the depths of grief, lament fights the urge to turn away from God in despondency by turning toward Him in desperation.
Feeling despondent and yielding to despondency are different. Yielding to despondency is to make friends with it, essentially declaring your hope dead rather than living. We, brothers and sisters, don’t make peace with despondency, we make war. We stand strengthened by the Lord and engage in the good fight of faith by putting on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:11). Along with that, we “Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints” (v. 18). Lament is the prayer language of perseverance in the midst of spiritual warfare as it calls on the God who fights for you to act on your behalf. Choosing despondency over declaring war is rooted in unbelief, because unbelief accepts defeat. Giving up in the fight for your faith is to allow sin to have dominion over you rather than choose to be governed by God’s grace. And God’s grace is seen in our ability to turn to Him in belief, often seen by the word “but.”
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever.
(Psalm 73:26, emphasis mine)
Your health, your heart, and every circumstance in your life may fail, but your Father in heaven will not. Emotional health and maturity are not found in the absence of struggle, but through faith in the struggle. This very act of turning, which the use of but indicates, is the truest form of faith as that which is based on what we believe rather than what we see and feel. And not just turning to look at God, but turning to really see Him; to address Him in belief that He, in fact, does hear our prayers.
But represents the resolve necessary to trust God even if your circumstances appear to oppose His loving-kindness. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego lived with the resolve but represents. When King Nebuchadnezzar threatened to throw them in the fiery furnace for not bowing down to a gold statue, they replied: “If the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if he does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up” (Daniel 3:17-18, emphasis mine).
Because “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1 NIV), admitting that your flesh and heart may fail highlights the miracle of your faith. Through faith in Christ, we have a settled confidence that is not wishful thinking born of imagination or even the ideal circumstances. Faith is being persuaded that the promises of God, regardless of how feasible they appear, will transpire because God is eternal, good, sovereign, trustworthy, wise, and all-powerful, and because we look to Scripture as our absolute truth in understanding our Lord.
Faith calls us to do what may appear foolish to the world, but God made the deliberate choice to use the foolish things of the world to shame those that view themselves wise. Human nature would view Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his beloved son, Isaac, to be foolishness; however, Abraham’s faith looked past his knife to the God he was convinced could raise Isaac from the dead. Abraham chose to obey God regardless of how foolish it may have seemed; He chose to believe. Through Abraham’s faith, he was counted righteous by the Lord (Genesis 15:6). Lamenting pain to the God whose providence allowed it may seem foolish to some, but what do they know of God’s miraculous mercy that, in reality, shines with absolute love?
When pain paints God as hateful, we can curse God and die like Job’s wife suggested, or we can turn to God in hopeful sorrow. One option answers Satan’s call, while the other takes the posture of grief and worship, declaring: “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” (Job 2:10). Job’s humble sentiment does not abolish his sorrow, but rather shows that even in sorrow, faith is possible. Job illustrates that we can accept adversity from God and still cry to Him over it.
Those who have invalidated your pain, by hushing your vocalization of confusion in the name of faith, don’t understand how worshipful weeping binds a bleeding heart to the Father. God doesn’t invalidate pain. I believe He does the exact opposite. The inclusion of lament in the Bible acts as a divine invitation for us to join those in Scripture who have wrestled with the hard things of this world. Lament doesn’t suppress hurt, but offers an outlet to express it. Lament is the unique language belonging to the children of God. It is not simply crying, but rather praying the sorrow you’re convinced will kill you back to God with the purpose of renewing hope in Him.
[1] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “lament (n.),” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/5576149127.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Excerpt from “Hopeful Sorrow: Turning to God in Hope When Childhood Wounds Have You Turning Away.” Julie Busler is a Bible teacher, author, speaker and mental health advocate.)
