Anger. Hopeless. Trust.
Despair. Hope. Confusion. Trust.
For most lament is rarely a straight path. It is a wandering towards God in the midst of pain.
Trusting him enough to complain to him, begging him to fix it, and finding hope along the way as we go back and forth between moments of complaint, begging, trust and gratitude for who he is.
Three years ago our youth group learned how to lament through a series of listening to people’s stories, studying Scripture, and leaning into honesty with God - both individually and together.
Three years later this spiritual practice has come back to us over and over again.
2020 has given us plenty to lament:
The death of a friend.
COVID-19.
National political unrest.
National and local racial tensions.
As you listen to this plan I hope that you’ll find yourself, your family, your friends or your community somewhere in the writers who experienced pain and found themselves crying out to God in the midst of it.
The very fact that they were crying out to God communicated a level of trust in him.
It’s clear to me in Scripture that God actually invites our honest complaints over what isn’t right in this world.
He doesn’t disappear when things get hard.
Let these words be the beginning of a new level of honesty with the One who created you.
As your honesty builds, trust will rise.
Hope will come.