Psalms: Songs for All of Life
Lament
Reflections
Until you bottom out, and come to the limits of your own fuel supply, there is no reason for you to switch to a higher octane of fuel. For that is what is happening! Why would you? You will not learn to actively draw upon a Larger Source until your usual resources are depleted and revealed as wanting.
— Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
- What do we do with our pain?
- We medicate – one more drink, one more shopping spree, one thing of something, anything
- We numb
- We can’t just rely one verses like “God will not give us more than we can handle”
- We can’t just bypass being lament, or the process of it
- Chuck DeGroat – Lament is the ancient art of crying our prayers
- Pattern
- Freedom of expressing our pain
- We are either too good at putting on a facade (and isolate ourselves) or too exhausted of doing it
- Posture of Lament
- v13 – but my hope is in You
- Lament is not same as complaining
- It is in the presence of God, not seeking for quick fix
- Journey of searching for God, v16-17, God’s steadfast love
- Person of Lament
- in this passage, he is David
- in Gospel, he is Christ Jesus
- God shares the pain of this world when He loses His Son, dying on the cross
- Lament is not just between you and God, it is between community and God
- By living in the city, we share the lament of the city
