Lament to Praise

Dear Church Family

   April 6, first day of Holy Week and we are still in the stay home and be safe mode. With more people showing positive signs of the Covid-19, I thought I would share a very helpful devotional I came across a day or so ago. Our prayers will grow as we include a wide range of thought.

   From N.T. Wright Online, he offers the reminder that our faith doesn’t always have an answer to every question, but offers us a way through every situation with prayer. The book of Psalms particularly, has many prayers called Laments. For the Psalms have a history of dealing with suffering, maybe it’s time we really appreciated them.

1.    Lament is a form of Praise.

   Old Testament Scholars estimate that two-thirds of the psalms are laments. There are many examples of the people of Israel, especially in the desert complaining to God, but in reality they eventually turn to lament, asking God out of his great love for them, to help them in their dire straights. With some thought, a complaint becomes an awareness that God has helped in the past, that’s why we are disappointed, and now we want help again.

2.    Lament is a proof of the relationship.

   The laments were a people, whom YHWH – God, the sole sovereign creator – had called His “firstborn”. They were asking their Father to act accordingly. Like small children who on Saturday morning want breakfast, maybe before parents want to get up, that they are hungry. They know to ask parents, not their neighbors for food.

3.    Lament is a pathway to intimacy with God.

   By laying out every emotion and every experience before God, their covenant God, same with Jesus in the Upper Room, with a New Covenant, the laments psalms are reinforcing a bond of intimacy, affirming the attachment. By breaking open our hearts we are moving toward God who moves into the brokenness of our lives. But often, not until we ask, so lament is asking for help from God, based on our moving toward God’s care for us.

4.    Lament is a prayer for God to act.

   Many of the laments are calls for action. They plead with God to pay attention to them and to act on their behalf. It’s like a cry to God to listen, for we have trouble. It’s the other side of the coin, where God asks us to listen to God’s guidance and help. The prayer is an intention to increase the listening, the paying attention, and actually for both sides of the request. We ask God to listen to our woes, and God asks us to listen to God’s ways. In Jesus, he was teaching us to ask for the arrival of the Kingdom

5.    Lament is a participation in the pain of others.

   Lament is not only for suffering but is for solidarity with the suffering. If the Psalm doesn’t speak to your exact condition, there is someone you know or should think about who is. Read all the Psalms regularly and learn to pray in a wider sphere of awareness and compassion. Lament often leads to Praise, when the prayers are answered. I’ve tried to pray 5 Psalms a day, getting through the whole book every month. I invite you to grow in your prayer language the same way.

This week we move from Lament to Hallelujah. May you feel God’s help and ask for others as well.

Blessings.     

Pastor Jeff