The transforming power of a treasured lament

Secrets to making life work are something that consume many people’s thoughts.  This fact is evidenced whenever we give up.  Trying and despairing come from the same source: wanting to adapt and to be happier or wanting life to be different.

But what if there was a way that we could live as life is?  I mean perfectly attuned to the struggles without needing to fix everything.  Or even to be audacious enough to go one step better.  To adhere to this as a possibility is an alluring thought.

There is a way...

THE FORGOTTEN & IGNORED BLESSING OF LAMENT

The least used form of prayer in our modern day is the mode of lament.  It is also the most misunderstood.  We commonly think that lament is about wallowing in our sorrow.  Sitting in our sack cloth and ashes.  Throwing ourselves a pity party.

But actually, the laments of the Bible are nothing like that. There are only one or two lament psalms, for instance, that start out dark and remain so.  But they are all refreshingly honest, and especially in a day where there is more denial than ever, we could certainly use this language for prayer and for faith.

The lament psalms grasp two divergent ideas simultaneously. We could imagine holding in one hand the overwhelmingly calamitous present situation of COVID-19, whilst holding in the other hand the perfect Presence of the Lord our God.

This Lord who is not only for us, but who is WITH us by the Holy Spirit.  Lament presupposes just that.  God WITH us.

DIVERGENT YET COMPLEMENTARY CONCEPTS TO HOLD IN TENSION

Holding these two divergent ideas simultaneously challenges our thinking, that a good and holy God continues to be present with us even, and especially even, in diabolical situations.

Holding both a fallen world amid God’s redemptive nature, we ascend, but only through lament, which is again most deeply misunderstood.  What we commonly think of as disempowering is actually more empowering than we could ever conceive, and we realise this when we actually try it.

WHEN WE SIT IN A MYSTERY, WE GET
THE CHOICE TO TRANSCEND IT

Imagine being able to live cognisant of the full truth of reality, not being scared of it whilst also not being resentful of it.  Only through genuine lament can we achieve this.  This is why the laments start out so dark and typically end in praise of God — in which case, Psalm 13 is a resplendent exemplar.

The history of the laments is such that there is no attempt of escape made.  Likewise, there is no attempt made to fix the situation through human effort.  Having resisted the temptation to do either of these things, what opens up before us is the opportunity to transcend the situations that threaten to assail us.  We give up trying to manipulate God.

What we enter, therefore, is an authentically liminal spirituality.  This is indeed the faith that Jesus referred to when he said in John 16:33: “The world is full of trouble, but do not fear for I have overcome the world.”

LICE & FLEAS

I was recently reminded of Corrie Ten Boom and how she became thankful for fleas.  The fact that her concentration camp quarters were infested with lice and fleas meant that fewer patrols by guards were conducted, meaning they could preach about God all the more often.

Through the action of lament, Corrie Ten Boom was reminded of the need to, “give thanks in all circumstances.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).  There truly wasn’t any better way of witnessing to the power of Christ.

Lice and fleas.  Can you imagine it?  Can you imagine turning such a disgusting and painful situation around and seeing the blessing in it?  This can only come out of lament, which is a facing and an embracing of reality without being driven hard into despair.

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Allow me to finish with a thesis of lament that neither denies realities of sorrow, fear or hardship, nor does it attack them resolving that they must be ‘fixed’.

There are three positions of thinking in all situations. We deny hard facts and turn AWAY from the trauma of them, or we accept and turn TOWARD our trial, or we embrace or turn BEYOND these and transcend them.

The same amount of thinking energy is involved in each process.

The first takes us into a nowhere land of maladaptive behaviour.

The second is a holding pattern.

Only the third empowers us to make a new, transcendent choice.

All that remains is that this is a journey in which we never arrive.  It’s a spiritual practice we live out a moment at a time.

I think it’s only fair to round this out by finishing in this vein: lament is about acknowledging the sadness, which is the common grief of life that we all inevitably suffer at many points and to varying degrees.  None of what I have written above in any way devalues the raw process that takes us from despair to hope.  On the contrary, it is by entering in upon the grief that the inner work of Christ can be done.

Lament, therefore, is God’s agency and method for redeeming hope in the oft-crushing, broken world, life.  As we worship God in spirit and in truth, the truth sets us free, and facing our sorrow in the mood of lament is very much about how the truth sets us free.

Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash