What if I told you that, as Christians, we have a grace so profound and yet so underutilised? The grace I speak of is the grace to lament. First of all, what does lament mean? To lament is to express oneself passionately due to a particular grief or sorrow in one’s life. With that definition out of the way, one may ask, how can that be a grace? How can an expression of pain towards God be a means of him favouring us? This is especially true if you were brought up in a setup that looked at lament as questioning God. Not just that, but also that our pain should be a private affair. However, as I shall posit in this article, the result of bottling up our pain instead of lamenting toward God will only make us bitter and angry towards him. Doing so is sinful as it is an actual distrust of God.
Many would look at Psalm 13:1, which reads, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” and be bewildered at how the statement made is our pointer to our trusting God. However, with this article, I will strive to show you why we should more often take our cries to God as a sign of entrusting ourselves to him. Essentially, my hope is to destigmatise the notion that taking our doubts and questions to God is us distrusting him. I will conclude by showing why taking our laments to God is a grace when in affliction.
Lament as a Sign of Trusting in God
To lament to God doesn’t just mean taking your grief passionately before Him. It also means trusting in him as our only hope. In lamenting, we are telling God this: I don’t have any answers for my current affliction, so I turn to you as only you can give me answers. Many may say that exposes the doubt you have in God. However, if Philippians 4:6-7 is anything to go by, not taking your cries to him is you doubting. Doubting that he could give you the answers to your questions. It is also built on the thought that telling him your raw thoughts concerning the affliction wrought is beneath him. In short, it is doubting his sovereignty over your suffering.
However, God wants you to come to him with your cries. Consider Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:22-12:10; he wrote that boasting about his weaknesses was trusting wholly in God for his strength. The author of Psalm 13 brought his sorrow before God, for he trusted that God’s love was absolutely steadfast (Psalm 13:5-6). Going back to Philippians 4:6-7, we are told not to be anxious about anything. ‘Anything’ includes lament. As Philippians 4:7 concludes, the end goal is for God’s peace to guard our hearts and minds in Christ. This means holding back our complaints from God makes us ripe for temptation. However, Romans 6:12 shows that we shouldn’t give sin an inch over our bodies. Not lamenting is not trusting in God but leaning on yourself (Proverbs 3:5-6). Doing so is to your detriment.
Lamenting as a Grace from God
Imagine having a father whom you, as his child, always wronged. Despite your estate, whenever you go to your father with your cries and needs, he willingly drops everything to listen to your pleas. With this kind of compassionate affection, wouldn’t you look to your father as a source of hope even through thick and thin? The same should be true with our heavenly Father, especially so. He is our only source of hope, even though we don’t deserve that hope. Yet, he grants us an audience to bring our supplications to him (Hebrews 4:14-16). That is truly a grace for us. Despite everything, he says to us: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).
He would be justified to ignore and shove us away from his presence. However, he does the opposite of that and opens his arms to invite us into his loving embrace. Therefore, dear saint, run to the Lord when you are in anguish, his arms are wide open for you. Grieve as much as you need to, for he listens. As Isaiah 41:10 promises, if you run to God, he will strengthen and uphold you by his righteous right hand. 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 shows that God graciously comforts the afflicted. Therefore, see the grace God affords you and hold to it for his glory and your good (Romans 8:28).
Examples from Scripture
Did you know that almost, if not more than, half of the psalms are prayers of lament? We also have a whole book in the Bible dedicated to lamenting: Lamentations. Scripture is also rife with examples of people who took their laments before God, and I want to cite some of them. I aim to use these examples, concluding with the ultimate example, Christ, to show why taking our cries to God is essential for the Christian life.
Naomi
It is easy to see Naomi’s bitterness toward God in Ruth 1 as a sign of doubting him. However, even though there are hints of bitterness to the point she couldn’t exactly see the graces God was affording her in Ruth (Ruth 1:21), there is still a sense in which her actions after her son’s death were a lament to God. If anything, her choice to return to Bethlehem can be viewed as a symbol of her turning to God. As we are told in Ruth 1:6, she decided to return home because “the LORD had visited his people.” If she was so angry with God that she lost trust in him, why return to him? One of the main characteristics of a heart of lament is that no matter how bitter, angry or sorrowful one may be, especially toward God, you are still to turn to him.
You could argue that Naomi was correcting a wrong they committed. Instead of running to God in their time of distress, they chose to run to the world (Ruth 1:1). I have linked an article that delves deeper into this to shorten this article. I will, however, conclude by stating that Naomi was exceedingly bitter (Ruth 1:13, 20-21). Even so, she chose to turn and entrust herself to the One she knew was sovereign over her suffering. Dear saint, I urge you to do the same.
The Psalmists
I won’t delve much into the Psalmists as Lord-willing, I will be writing a separate article entirely based on them. If there is a book that should help us know what it means to lament, it is the psalms. More than half of the Psalms have traces of lament, if not all out laments. Statements such as; How long, O LORD (Psalm 13:1)? The psalms are so rich with lament that our own Savior used them in his loud cry on the cross (Matthew 27:46 cf. Psalm 22:1). The psalms show us that even when we are in the darkest of corners, we can still with confidence approach our Father. They show us that even then, he alone is the God of our salvation—one who invites us to cry day and night before him (Psalm 88:1 cf Hebrews 4:15-16).
Jesus
The ultimate example of why we should lament is our Lord and Savior. If, for some reason, the other examples don’t sound appealing to you, then I pray Jesus’ example will. If the Son of God (Matthew 16:16), equal to the Father (Philippians 2:6, Colossians 1:15-20, Hebrews 1:1-3), in all things, lamented, who are we to think it is beneath us? We get a clear picture of Christ lamenting during his crucifixion. While going through the most intense torture in human history, first being crucified by sinful man and secondly, for our sake, drinking the cup of God’s wrath, he lets out a loud cry: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46)” His loud cry was a quotation from Psalm 22:1, a psalm of lament.
This does not mean that Christ doubted God or questioned his purposes. Instead, Jesus acknowledged how, at that moment, his perfect union with the Father had been severed. At that moment, He acknowledged how it had pleased the Father to crush him (Isaiah 53:10). However, he still entrusted Himself to his Father by committing his spirit to God (Matthew 27:50, Luke 23:46 – quoting from Psalm 31:5). He also trusted and fulfilled his Father’s will (Matthew 26:39). Our Savior’s lament was Him turning to His only hope and entrusting Himself to God.
Lament to God with Confidence
In conclusion, dear saint, God has given you an avenue by which you can turn to him with your loudest cries. Whether that be because of the loss of a loved one, an illness or because of whatever affliction you may be facing. Therefore, I urge you not to waste it. Turn to him, cry to him, for it is only then that will you get the answers you need. You will find hope in the dark as Job did when he said, “I know that my Redeemer lives” (Job 19:25).
Indeed he does, and not only that, but he tasted death and suffering (Hebrews 2:9-10). He didn’t do so for you to wallow in your sorrows but to give you an audience with one who can hear your cries and answer them according to his good purpose (Hebrews 4:16). Therefore, I urge you wholeheartedly to take your cries to God, the One who has brought you from darkness into his marvellous light (1 Peter 2:9). Surely, his love never ceases, and great is his faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23).