Asking for help doesn’t come without risk, and voicing questions holds opportunities for ridicule. But sometimes the risk is worth the ride and the questions unfold into glorious answers. However, before I give voice to my question, I jump through mental hoops like these:

“Shouldn’t I know this?”

“What if I come across ignorant?”

“That’s a stupid request.”

“I don’t know how to ask this without offending anyone.”

I keep telling myself and my kids that there isn’t a dumb question because asking questions is a sign of someone who’s hungry for knowledge and information. It’s when those questions reveal that I need something from someone–whether it’s someone’s help or their acknowledgement or advice– that I feel like I’m a major inconvenience. Too often, I turn to Google or Alexa because they’re less intimidating. My racing heart stills and the idea cements that I need to figure things out on my own.

In our self-sufficiency driven culture, the pressure to know all the things or at least perceive to know all the things creates a pride that prevents us from asking. On the flipside, insecurity whispers that we’d just better figure this life out on our own because we’re really not that important. Pride and insecurity drive us away from the One who receives our questions and who desires to give us good gifts.

If we turn to the first few chapters in Genesis, we discover the tendency of human nature towards self-sufficiency.  Two humans in a perfect relationship with God hid from God once sin entered the world. Instead of running to God they ran away from him. They turned to themselves in an attempt to solve the problem.

Our tendency is independence and self-sufficiency, but self-sufficiency and independence feeds the pride that prevents us from running to God in times of need. When we screw up, we want to cover up. But God asks us to uncover and run straight to him.

Take Up Your Courage

Hebrews 4:12-16 tells us that God sees all things because everything is laid bare before him. It tells us that we have a high priest who intercedes for us and makes a way for us to boldly approach the throne of God to receive the grace we need.

Imagine if we approached all our problems with this mentality. Envision running towards God, crying for help, pouring out our hearts to him, confessing our trust, and asking for what we want. This is the power of lament: it brings us to a place of peaceful trust because we run towards God instead of away. It gives our heart a place to dump the hidden and the visible garbage. Lament allows God to make something beautiful out of our pain.

We don’t need to have it all figured out before we come to God. We don’t need to be prim and proper or spit and polished. It’s in the coming to him– just as we are– where he refines us and creates beauty out of ashes.

Bring Your Petition

Using Psalm 31 as a model, we see how David brought his petition before the Lord.

¹⁴ But I trust in you, Lord;
    I say, “You are my God.”
¹⁵ My times are in your hands;
    deliver me from the hands of my enemies,
    from those who pursue me.
¹⁶ Let your face shine on your servant;
    save me in your unfailing love.
¹⁷ Let me not be put to shame, Lord,
    for I have cried out to you;
but let the wicked be put to shame
    and be silent in the realm of the dead.
¹⁸ Let their lying lips be silenced,
    for with pride and contempt
    they speak arrogantly against the righteous.

David begins the petition portion of his lament with a redeclaration of his trust in God. Then he goes on to ask for deliverance from his enemies and that God would save him. He petitions God to look toward him and not let him be put to shame.

Reveal Your Heart

These verses echo what’s so often hiding in our hearts: that God would do something about our circumstances and that his face would be turned towards us–in the big and little stuff of life. Yet, we’re often shamed into hiding our need. Shame leads us to false belief that we don’t deserve God’s help.  Fear  of disappointment holds us back from asking the question: “What do I want God to do for me today?”

And that’s the question I leave with you: What do you want God to do for you? Is it healing, provision, intercession, advocacy, trust, peace, or strength? Take your pain, tell God everything, redeclare your trust in him, and ask. Take courage and be bold.

Learning to Lament Series

When Pain Overtakes Joy and What to Do About It

Cry For Victory and Find Your Way Home

The Song of Lament and The Way to Trust His Heart

When Emotions and Lament Create Paths to Trust

Emotions scare me because they’re so powerful, yet render me powerless. The power of them takes me by surprise, like touching a hot pan. I yank back in defensiveness, shielding my wound. Emotions surrounding the pain of shattered friendships, lousy news, and broken trust cause me to harden my heart.   Countless times, I’ve tried to shield my heart from the extremes of emotions, but I’ve realized that if I fail to experience the fulness of sadness and anger then joy and love don’t reach their full potential.

God has gifted us with the language of lament in order to grow our faith, proclaim hope, and teach us love. Lament is the language of emotion, and without lament, our hurtful experiences dictate the way we interact with God, ourselves, and others. Without a safe place for expression, we withdraw or cast blame. This prevents us from the abundance that the Lord offers in John 10:10.

Exploring Emotions within the Context of the Psalms

Exploring our emotions is part of learning to live in the fullness he provides, but out of control emotions create consequences in our lives that lead to more regret. We shout words we can never take back, we slam cupboard doors, and we choose indifference rather than deference. A shroud of sorrow lingers over our happiest moments and we ease around that massive problem we try to ignore.

As Christ-followers, we are not immune to struggles. Pain, sorrow, and disappointment follow us, interrupt us, and surprise us. We understand the importance of learning the language of lament, we’ve explored the cry of help, and the confession of trust. Today, we cover the expression of pain.

One of the best ways to learn to express our heart’s pain is to read the Psalms as if we’re writing them. When David writes in Psalm 31:9, “Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief,” we are given the okay to tell God about our distress.

Psalm 31 guides us to sit with God in the pain and recognize that our emotional distress affects our physical body. When we’re weary from an emotional storm, it grows more and more difficult to make choices that honor God with what we do and say.

Let Emotions Remind us of God’s Goodness

When our eyes are weak with sorrow and our body wracked with grief, let’s take David’s words and make them our own. David knew distress; he felt forgotten and rejected by so-called friends. People plotted against him and he wondered when and if things would ever turn around.

I’ve been there, have you? As I page through my Bible, I find evidence of relating to exactly what David experienced. As I repeatedly read through the Psalms, I come to margins with scribbled dates beside them that remind me that God is my help, defender, and rescuer.

Learning to lament through reading the Psalms is the best way to learn to express the gamut of emotions created by the human experience. It enables us to give voice to our deepest hurts, our deepest regrets, and our deepest sorrows. Imagine the outcome if you’re able to lead your heart to hope the next time an emotional storm whips through your life.

Lament is the language that leads us through our sorrow and into praise. Trouble comes to us. We know disappointment and frustration; sorrow and pain. Trusting the Lord and taking hold of courage in the midst of problems grows our faith when we use the language of lament.

The Mourning Song of Lament and Trust

Lament is the song our hearts sing as it mourns our circumstances, as it points our hearts to trust in God’s character, and as it expresses all the pain that we never dreamed we would feel. Lament’s song gives voice to our pain and brings hope to our heart. We begin our lament with the releasing cry of our worries, anxieties, disappointments, anger, and heartbreak. It’s an emptying of everything in our heart: the ugly parts we try and hide, the doubt we cover up with weak faith, and the fear that maybe God won’t come through for us.

As we empty our hearts of all it’s turmoil, we remind ourselves to trust in God. In lament, we confess our trust because our hearts need the reminder of the truth about God’s character. Trust is defined as a “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing.” (dictionary.com) In one five letter word, we discover a depth of meaning.

Truths for Trust

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” Psalm 18:2

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

“But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord know those who are his,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.'” 2 Timothy 2:19

The Pendulum Swings

When we face confusing or hurtful circumstances, our understanding of God’s character goes on trial. Our emotions sway our hearts, like a pendulum, back and forth, back and forth, but a heart that finds its anchor in the Lord of Hosts is the heart that learns the lament. We cry and then we confess trust.

But what happens when our emotions of despair and depression keep swinging to rage and threaten our peace of mind? Confession of trust is more than just saying over and over again, “I trust you, God.” It’s declaring the truth about God while feeling the emotions of despair.

A Look into Psalm 31’s Lament and Trust

If we look at Psalm 31 as an example we see how David confessed his trust in God and declared truth about God’s character. We find David asking God to rescue him while re-remembering God’s character and attributes.

God is a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, refuge, and redeemer. It’s these that David writes for himself and for us in times of trial. David calls God faithful as he commits himself to God no matter what he faces.  In verse three, we read an echo of Psalm 23 where God leads and guides. David rejoices because he knows God sees his affliction and knows the distress of his soul and that God’s steadfast love holds him fast.

Lament Confessing Trust

A confession of trust is not an absence of fear or doubt, but the expression of confidence that God is bigger than our circumstances, fears, and sorrow. And not only is he bigger than all that pain, but he is compassionate beyond our wildest imaginations. Even when life hurts and we don’t understand what God is doing or why he is not acting the way we expect, we can trust his heart.

Steadfast Love

His heart is trustworthy because his love is steadfast. By remembering that we cannot be separated from his love, that his love stays the same, that his love isn’t double-minded, or performance based, we can face our afflictions with trust because God sees our soul’s distress and feels compassion towards us. We can be glad in his steadfast love even when we’re facing troubles. This is what grows our trust so that we can confess our trust. Lament leads our heart through sorrow to praise and finally to hope when we cry out our pain and then confess our trust.