In the depths of despair, our hearts long for hope, a seemingly impossible dream. There are times in life when the future is dark and we can’t find a way out of the pain. It seems that everything is broken and we don’t have a solution. What do we do in those bitter moments? How do we cope? Where can we find that hope that we have almost given up on finding?
Laments – Cries From A Heart That Longs For Hope
Where better to begin than to search in the Psalms? While God would have been perfectly right to include only Psalms of praise and thanksgiving, or Psalms that speak of His royalty and majesty, what may be surprising to discover is that the vast majority of Psalms are psalms of lament. These psalms shock us with their honesty. They offend us with their passion. We debate “How could a faith-filled person think this way?” And more often than not, we find a deep familiarity and empathy in their painful cries.
Consider some of the thoughts that are shared in these psalms of lament:
- Why have you forgotten me? (Psalm 42:9; 77:9)
- Wake up God! (Psalm 35:23; 44:23)
- Why have you rejected me? (Psalm 27:9; 71:9)
We know God doesn’t sleep, He does not forget, He cannot reject His own. But in times of hardship and struggle, our limited human hearts struggle to remember this truth.
Anguished words
As you read psalms of lament, you may be shocked by the intensity of the cry pouring out of an agonized heart. Imagine the pain that the psalmist is experiencing in these moments:
My tears have been my food day and night.
Psalm 42:3, ESV
I drench my couch with weeping, my eye wastes away because of grief
Psalm 6:6, ESV
You can feel that in your soul, can’t you? How about:
My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me and horror overwhelmss me. And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.
Psalm 55:4-6, ESV
And then there’s Psalm 88 that starts with crying out day and night, moves on to contemplating the end of life, and ends alone, and as the final verse in the NLT says:
You have taken away my companions and loved ones. Darkness is my closest friend.
Psalm 88:18, NLT
Our Compassionate God
Our God is no stranger to our suffering. What we see in the Psalms is his recognition of the reality and the depth of our pain. He invites us, and even teaches us to be real with Him. We don’t have to put on a brave front for Him. He doesn’t ask us to clean up our emotions, analyzing our thoughts through a theological filter before speaking them to Him. We don’t have to be brave and strong in our prayers. He is our confidence, and He is our strength – He is the one who provides those things.
To me, this is so extraordinarily comforting. I can tell Him exactly what I’m thinking, exactly what I’m feeling, and trust that HE is not offended by me. He already knows what I’m thinking – there’s nothing I can hide from Him. He knows what I’m feeling. And even more – He knows all the things I don’t know. He knows why I think and feel the way I do. I don’t have to pre-process everything before I come to Him in prayer. It’s in prayer that you can properly process the depth of your experiences.
This is often what we see in psalms of lament. You’ll see the psalmist going back and forth with the Lord, describing his troubles to the Lord, and then rehearsing the truths about the Lord’s character, His faithfulness, His strength, and then going right back to talking about the struggle, back and forth as the psalmist wrestles with his thoughts and emotions. We saw this in Psalms 42-43, where the psalmist wrestles with his thoughts, and then goes right back to the Lord, remembering His presence and HIs promises.
Praying Psalms of Lament
Take a cue from the psalms of lament – even take their words, and use them to pour out your pain and suffering to the One who is strong enough to carry them. As you take your pain, your anger, and your frustrations to Him, He will begin to adjust your perspective. He’ll help you see things through His eyes.
He is kinder than you could ever imagine. More compassionate than you dream possible. He’s not out to get you or chastise you. He understands you – and when you get a glimpse of how well He understands you it will make you weep.
The Hope God Gives
I’ve discovered that the Lord’s compassion doesn’t look like He coddling. He doesn’t just give me what I want – or what I think I need. Instead, He is patient with me. He points out the enemy’s influence on my thoughts, calling out the lies that I’m clinging to and counters them with His truth. He calls me to walk in faith, to endure with perseverance, and to cling to hope in Him.
This is what you find when you read Psalms 42 and 43, two powerful psalms of lament. In these psalms, you’ll find a repeated refrain after every stanza – so much like a chorus to our hymns. Listen to how the psalmist rejects the lies and embraces hope in who God is:
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation, and my God.
Psalm 42:5-6a ESV
What is Hope?
Let’s talk for a minute about the word hope. Our common understanding of hope is so weak, and strips hope of its power. In most of our everyday use, there is a sense of doubt that accompanies hope. It tends to imply wishful thinking. In modern English hope is something that we would like to see happen, even if we are unsure if it actually will.
Biblical hope is so much more because the power of God is what gives hope its strength. This is what makes it so different from worldly hope. Worldly hope has no foundation to draw from. Anything can change at any moment, and your hope can dissolve into disappointment. But our hope is different. Ultimately, our hope goes beyond any expectation in this life – our hope is in the amazing future that we are promised in Jesus. We know that the pain and the struggle will not have the final say, but there will come a day when
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
Revelation 21:4
The Hope of a Future Glory
Even if we find ourselves in the place of the psalmist in Psalm 88, where it seems like hope is nowhere to be found, we know that God is still faithful. We know that even if in this life we never experience a resolution to the pain, this life is so temporary, and there is immeasurable glory and peace to come. And even in the pain of this life, we are not alone – even if, like in Psalm 88, we feel like darkness is our only friend – we still have the Lord with us, our strength when all we have is weakness.
A Lesson From Romans 8
Take a look at this passage from Romans 8 – notice how often it speaks of hope. As you read, what you do you learn about hope? How does the Lord explain the cause of our pain, and the perspective He wants us to have? Why does He call us to wait in hope?
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.
Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Romans 8:18-26, ESV
The Cause of Pain, and the Solution God has Provided
Our pain and our suffering come as a result of sin, the corruption that this world has fallen into both physically and spiritually because of our rebellion against God. But God has seen our pain and has done something about it. He Himself has provided that cleansing for sin in the blood of Jesus. And even as we get to live even now in part in His redemptive power, He is waiting for the fullness of redemption to be realized – waiting on us to turn to Him, to give as many people as possible a chance to repent and receive the hope that comes with a renewed life.
The Wonderful Counselor
Psalms of lament are proof that God understands your pain. He hears you and gives words to the anguish of your soul. He knows that sin – either our own or simply the sin that exists in the world around us is the source of our suffering, and has provided the solution. Even if He doesn’t change your circumstances, in Christ He is with us today. He is the wonderful counselor, the Prince of Peace, the gracious and merciful One who calls you to look past the pain of the present to the beautiful hope in glory that He has planned for those who trust in Him.
The post was inspired by and corresponds with Lesson 4 of Call to Worship: An Inductive Introduction to Studying Psalms.
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