Lament, But Not Without Hope!

In Ecclesiastes, the prophet let us know that there was a time and a season for everything. To say there would be no times of sadness would also negate times of joy – how would you know the difference? Feelings are a part of our make-up, to deny that we have them would be foolish.

However, feelings are not to control us. If we go by our feelings, there are so many things that we would not do that are essential to our living. Many of the Psalms we read are psalms of lament. To lament means to have a passionate feeling of grief or loss. To stay in a state like this would in effect immobilze you and in fact many people have succumbed to that state today. The difference with the Psalmist as he cried out in lament, was that he cried out to One who he knew could ease his sorrow and his grief. For example in Psalm 5:

Listen to my words, Lord,
    consider my lament.
² Hear my cry for help,
    my King and my God,
    for to you I pray.

³ In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;
    in the morning I lay my requests before you
    and wait expectantly. (NIV)

Here we hear the sorrow in the Psalmist crying out to his King and His God. Yet in the third verse you see that he not only laid his request before the Lord each morning, but he waited expectantly for God to answer him.

This is a blueprint for the sorrow and grief that we are experiencing in our generation. Even as the Psalmist cried out in Psalm 27:3:

I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (KJV)

We will faint, unless we cry out to the God of our salvation to hear our cry, to ease our sorrow, to heal our land, to show forth His goodness unto the children of men, with salvation. For I contend God’s goodness is present with us every day, if we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand.

Maria