I am a HUGE fan of Adam Young's Podcast: The Place We find Ourselves. I encourage you to listen to this podcast and read my notes as you go. However, if you don't have time to listen, then this will provide a great overview.
My biggest "beef" with Christians has been their unwillingness to allow sorrow.
After the silence, after the shock of the pain, as the horror of the pain is settling in, Job opens up his mouth and speaks.
But he didn't have to! He didn't have to engage with life or with God! He didn't have to speak of his pain. He could have killed himself or numbed himself to his pain and pushed that pain down to the basement of his heart.
But Job chooses NOT to deny his pain. He speaks about his pain. He finds language to express his internal reality.
When your world is falling apart, will you open your mouth? Will you have the courage to express to God what you are truly feeling inside? Even if you can't pray, you can journal the words that explain what is going on inside of you.
Lament is to express sorrow, sadness, grief. Lament is what comes out of you when your dreams are shattered. Job actually curses the day of his birth. He wants the day of his birth annulled because his pain is so great. The only thing that brings him comfort, is wishing he'd never been born in the first place.
What is the Christian response to that pain? What should your attitude be when you are suffering? It is common to think, "I should ask God to increase my faith during this time." Or maybe we think, "I need to repent." Or you think, "I should be grateful for what I have."
But Job DOESN'T DO THAT! Is it ungodly to wish that you would die or wish that you would never have been born? Rebecca does it! Moses does it! Elijah prays that he might die. Jonah wants his life to be taken. Jeremiah uttered a lament quite similar to Job's.
If you are a Christian, you may need permission to feel. We think there is something wrong with sadness. Happiness needs to be on our face. We can't walk into church with sadness on our faces. And yet, Job and Lamentations and other books of the Bible tell us there is nothing ungodly about despair and permission to feel.
You can talk CANDIDLY about your feelings. Job invites us to pray our feelings. We pre-reflectively pray our feelings before editing our words. This can help identify what is going on in your heart. You can do this before you edit your words and make them consistent with some sort of theology. When was the last time you poured out yourself to God?!
We think we are living in a well-ordered or fair world. But we are NOT.
Lament means you are:
1. Allowed to FEEL your sorrow.
2. Allowed to EXPRESS that sorrow.
We are reluctant to use the language of lament because it seems to be an expression of distrust of God rather than trust. "A Christian shouldn't say, why didn't I die at birth!?"
Why not? Why can't they say that?
Saying "I wish I was dead" is okay. It takes more faith and trust to take our sorrow to God than it does to push down what we are actually feeling.
Does lamenting force us to despair? Look at Job. He was angry, but he ultimately had a conversation with God. The path of lament need not lead to despair. Despair results when we lament without hope. The resurrection of Jesus shatters all hopelessness by:
1. The resurrection means that your reality can be changed. If Jesus rose from the dead, then there is no situation that cannot be reversed. One Biblical scholar famously said, "Barrenness is the way of human history. It is an effective metaphor for hopelessness. But the marvel of Biblical Faith is that barrenness is the arena of God's life-giving action. It is part of the destiny of our common faith, that those who believe the promise and hope against barrenness, nevertheless must live with the barrenness. Why and how does one continue to trust solely in the promise when the evidence against the promise is all around? Can the closed womb of the present be broken open to give birth to a new future?" But look at Sarah! Her situation could be reversed. It's impossible to be raised from the dead, and yet Jesus was raised from the dead.
2. The resurrection means that even if the situation is not reversed, you have someone who will be with you in the fire. More than wanting our circumstances to change, we want to feel the presence of someone in the fire with us.
Most of us are deeply uncomfortable with our feelings. But feelings give us a window to what is going on in the deepest parts of our hearts. Your feelings happen in a fraction of a second, much faster than you can ever control. What God calls you is not getting rid of your sadness or fear. He calls you to honesty of whatever is inside you.
DO NOT DENY SORROW!
Job's biggest frustration is God's silence. His desire is for relationship with God. He wants response from God.
Lament is one of the most faithful responses you can make to the reality of this world and the reality of God.
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