Scripture: Psalm 13 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.
Devotion: To lament is to express deep regret, grief, or sorrow. When we think about the Bible and what we assume our relationship with Jesus should look like, lamenting isn’t something that is often at the top of our minds. But lamenting is something that we actually see all throughout the Bible. Many of the Psalms are lamentations and there is an entire book of the Bible entitled, “Lamentations” because of its content.
Lamenting is not wrong. It is not sinful. It does not mean that you don’t trust God or recognize Him as Lord. If fact, lamenting is a form of praise. It is not complaining to God about your situation. Instead, as N.T. Wright puts it, “A lament is an appeal to God based on confidence in His character.”
Much like our Psalm from today, we can cry out to God with our hearts. Experiencing any form of abuse certainly leads to lament. And, as we see throughout the Bible, we are encouraged to. When we grieve, when our hearts are broken, and when we feel helpless, we can cry out to God and give him all of our emotions and desires. But lamenting does not simply end with giving your grievances to the Lord, instead it ends with hope.
Our Psalm for today ends this way, “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me” (Psalm 13:5-6). There is a destination for our lamenting: choosing to trust. It is choosing to have a heart that clings to the steadfast love of the Lord. It is leaving with the confidence that whatever you walk through, God will keep His promises.
Reflect:
- What has been your perspective on lament?
- Have you ever lamented to the Lord?
- How might you shift your perspective from simply complaining about your situation to having the end goal of trusting God?
