Trusting God in the Midst of Suffering: Wrap Up

 

 Sometimes life is hard. Things just don’t add up. You hurt. You’re worn out. You’ve waited and waited, and reprieve doesn’t seem to be on the horizon. The Bible doesn’t shy away from these difficult seasons in our lives. It doesn’t shame us, or tell us we’re wrong to feel sad, scared or lost. Instead, it comes alongside us and says, yes, your brothers and sisters have felt that way too. You are not alone. The Bible teachs us about Lament.

 What is lament and how are we, as Christians, to use it in our spiritual life? Lament isn’t something that is often talked about in church or by the Christian influencers online that we follow. According to Bible Hub, lament is, “a form of prayer and expression that encompasses sorrow, mourning, and a plea for divine intervention.” It is a spiritual discipline, much like prayer and Bible reading. But lament is not just an expression of grief, it is also an articulation of trust in God amidst suffering and injustice. Lament turns us toward God when God seems far away*. 

Week 1 - Addressing God

 We start out our study in the Psalms. Beginning with Psalm 77, we consider how the psalmists address God. "Then I thought, 'To this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.'"  (Psalm 77:10-11). We start out by setting our perspective, by focusing on God and acknowledging who He is and what He is capable of. We level set by acknowledging that, as David says in Psalm 51, the LORD is our strength. Thanks to the Bible, we can find fellowship in our suffering with those who have gone before us, even with Christ Himself who also quoted this Psalm while He was on the cross dying for us. Setting our mentalposition before God is so crucial. Acknowledging who He is and who we are in relation to Him sets up our lament in a healthy way, "The sacrifice God desires is a humble spirit – O God, a humble and repentant heart you will not reject." (Psalm 51:17). And it is with our heart in the right place and acknowledging who God is we can move forward in trust. I can praise God right now for how He is going to work out all the situations that I currently face that don’t have any clear solution. I don’t have to wait until I see and experience God’s deliverance from my problems, because I can trust that, in His eyes, it has already happened. It’s a sure thing!

Week 2 - Express our Complaint

 The second week of this study we went through the classic text on lamenting: Lamentations. Written by the prophet Jeremiah as he mourns the downfall of Jerusalem, a downfall he sought diligently to avoid. Lamentations is both a personal and a national lament. The first day I was drawn to look at what it means to come alongside someone who is suffering or grieving, instead of distancing ourselves from them with platitudes and "helpful" wisdom. So why is there suffering and pain in this world? Sin. Does that mean that the person experiencing suffering is doing so because of some sin they committed, no, not necessarily. What I mean is that sin has tainted the world, broken the beautiful systems God designed for our good, and infected the very cells of our body. So does that mean that God doesn't have anything to do with our suffering, that He simply "allows" it? I don't think so. Lamentations 3, along with many other texts in the bible, specifically attributes the affliction the author and his contemporaries are experiencing to God. So, does God give us bad things, or are we seeing things as bad that really aren't. That's the question I struggled with on the third day. This led me to break down the process of lament and look across the Bible to see how God's Word teaches us to do it. When things have gone desperately wrong, when our life looks nothing like we expected it to, we long for restoration. This leads us into the next phase of lament.

Week 3 - Ask for our Desires

 On week 3 we dove into Romans 8:18-39. Each day I considered it in a different Bible translation, and I was amazed at how many new things I learned. On Monday, I was struck by the idea of hope. I looked at the importance of where we place our hope and the incredible gift of assurance that we have when we place our hope in God. Once our hope has been placed in God, its fulfillment is not a matter of if, but when, and while we don't know when that "when" will be, we can trust that God's timing is perfect and He's got it all worked out. When focusing on verse 26 of this passage I was reminded of my little nephew, Henry. Henry loves cookies and wants them all the time. To say he has a sweet tooth would be an understatement! But, because we love him, we don't give him cookies all the time. In the same way, we need to ask God for His best for us, not the sweet thing we desire in the moment. Verses 31-32 remind us that God is on our side and no one that comes against us stands a chance. We finished the week being assured absolutely that NOTHING can separate us from God's love!

Week 4 - Express Trust in God

 We're back in the Psalms this week exploring how those who have gone before us have said, "Things don't feel good right now, but I know You're good, God, and I'm excited to see what You do with it!" I'm so very thankful for God's Word and the very real people He used to write it. I'm thankful for their different voices and experiences. In the Love God Greatly devotional this week, the author writes, "Praise is what sets lament apart from complaining." This simple statement made it all click for me. This is the second time I've gone through this study, the first being in May of 2022, and looking back on what I wrote before I was pretty hung up on lament sounding like complaining, and thinking we weren't supposed to do that (Philippians 2:14, 1 Thessalonians 5:18). But in lament, we take the opportunity to express what's on our hearts honestly, and then turn to God in faith, knowing He will make it right. The first day this week I got interested in the popular idea of manifesting which did get some spicy feedback. Now, I don't at all believe in or promote the "Name it claim it" theology or any new age concept of magically speaking things into existence, but there's a lot of science behind us living out our thoughts. Proverbs 23:7a tells us, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he,” and I've seen this played out innumerable times in my life. We set ourselves up for success or failure depending on how we frame things in our mind. So, what kinds of thoughts put me on the right path? Those that focus on God and not on my problems. When I consider His wonderful ways, His incredible attributes, and His great love for me, worry just evaporates. We can praise God for His promises before we ever experience His provision. I was so blessed on the third day of this week to learn that one of the psalms we were looking at was the exact same one that Jesus sang with His disciples before heading out to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray on this last night on earth prior to His death on the cross. As He offered to us the cup of salvation and took up Himself the cup of suffering on our behalf, He praised God and expressed His trust in His Father. What a perfect example. You can hear this psalm sung in Hebrew at the bottom of this post. The Trekkie in me came out the next day as I compared the meaning of the word "Amen" to Picard's famous catch-phrase, "Make it So." On the final day of this study, I was inspired to write my own psalm of praise. I am not a poet, but it was a beautiful experience for me to write it, and I think it is something I will use going forward to remind me of the goodness of God that I've seen in my life.

Here's the Thing: Turns out lament isn't just complaining, it's reframing. We're taking our worries, our hurts, our suffering and laying them at the feet of Jesus, saying, "We trust You to make this all right in Your perfect will and way." It sets our hearts and minds up for hope instead of despair. Lament is a gift from God, modeled for us by the authors of the Bible, that can change the way we approach the hardest seasons of our lives.

*(Annaliese’s sermon on lament)