A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament

Top Highlights

“lament is not a path to worship, but the path of worship.” (source)

“The bottom line: We are all born into a world we were not really made to inhabit. We were created for God, made to flourish in the comfort of the Presence of our Father within the warm context of His undeniable hesed. Now, in this fallen world, we are cut off from them both. Only the loving sovereignty of all-wise God could redeem such a hopeless situation. His solution? To use suffering to save us. To redeem our own suffering and most significantly to redeem all mankind, through His own suffering on the cross to pay the price for our sin. In order to turn around and move once more in the direction of God, we must find this path He has carved out. We must call out to Him in the language He has provided. We must regain the tearful trail. We must relearn lament.” (source)

“Your worst enemies could very well be disguised as your friends. This is how to know the difference: Your true friends will be willing to sit with you in silence not for a week, but for as long as it takes. Your real friends will encourage you to keep talking, crying out to, arguing with God. And when you would be tempted to despair and quit the dance floor, saying that you simply lack the strength or the faith to go on, it is only your real friends who will have the love to leave you all alone with the One who desires, above all, to finish the dance with you.” (source)

“They represent the last refusal to let go of the God who may seem to be absent or worse — uncaring. If this is true, then lament expresses one of the most intimate moments of faith — not a denial of it. It is supreme honesty before a God whom my faith tells me I can trust. He encourages me to bring everything as an act of worship, my disappointment, frustration, and even my hate. Only lament uncovers this kind of new faith, a biblical faith that better understands God’s heart as it is revealed through Jesus Christ.” (source)