The Gift of Lamenting

Father why did you create me,

Only to suffer at the hands of those you put over me

Why can’t they care what happens to me,

Why must I journey this life alone.

Father, please hear my cry,

To know I am loved beyond measure.

Remind my soul to forever trust,

In your unfailing love.

Without you I would be but a speck of dust,

Unseen and unheard.      Anon

How many of us have felt like his?  How many of us wish our lives were better?  How many of us resent the way we are or have been treated?

Whatever the circumstances of the life of this author there seems to be a common voice for the people in the world we come across today, especially those who feel life shouldn’t have been as hard as it is.   Many of these people demonstrate this through anger, bitterness, rage; for others they manipulate to get what they want, they quietly work out in their minds how to get what they think they deserve.

As a Christian I have often thought that lamenting was a form of self-pity, a moping about, hey look at me, my life is worse than yours.  A dear Christian friend once challenged this thinking and suggested I took time to lament because the idea of lamenting comes from the word of God.  As a stubborn learner it was many years later before I began to understand and see what a gift of God lamenting is.

The two great biblical Lamenters that come to mind are Jeremiah and King David.

Jeremiah always lamented not for the things that happened to him but for the ways in which Israel continually rejected God.  Jeremiah’s heart for Israel was that they would come to understand that God was for them not against them.  That Israel would come to love God as he loved them and had always provided for them.

This should be the heart of every Christian towards the people trapped in the brokenness of this world. That, it is their blindness to God’s love and provision for them that results in the choices they make.  Just like Jeremiah who continually cried out to God on behalf of Israel may we pray like Jeremiah for and on behalf of the world we live in.

On the other hand, David’s lamentations were often for his personal journey, crying out to God in the face of great tribulation and rejection. There were often enemies at David’s door, ready to kill him, from King Saul through to his own Son.  King David even lamented the death of this very same Son.

Psalm 139 is filled with the wonder of being created in God’s image, to the crying out for justice to those who do evil, to the defeat of the enemies bent on his destruction but at the end of the Psalm, David’s cry is for God to change his own heart, to check to see if there is anything offensive within himself.

This is the journey of the Christian, of the one who has been transported out of darkness into the marvellous light of Jesus Christ. Whose hearts are transformed from hearts of pointing fingers at their enemies to their hearts depending on their Saviour. Who then in turn recognise that it is through Christ alone who takes us on the journey from Sinner to Saint, not because we earned it, but because he has mercy on us.

This gift of lamenting relines our hearts, having confidence the Father sees all things and judges all things justly.  That he hears and responds to our cries out of love for us. And through Jesus promises not to leave us where he found us.

The author of today’s lament had that realisation that it wasn’t the wrongs that had been done against ‘Anon’ that define us, but the Salvation of the one who loves and provides for us.  It is in the hope of God’s salvation plan that transforms us from being but a speck of dust to being seen and heard.