OK TO COMPLAIN? HOW ABOUT AN HONEST LAMENT- #7
“Therefore, lament is rooted in what we believe. It is a prayer loaded with theology. Christians affirm that the world is broken, God is powerful and he will be faithful. Therefore lament stands in the gap between pain and promise.” Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy. Discovering the Grace of Lament
“How long O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me O lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say ‘I have prevailed over him’, lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me”. Psalm 13
So I was working through some of my old journal entries recently. I have over 20+ years worth of them—essentially prayers, confessions, gratitudes and yes, complaints laid out before God. Direction, financial worry and career trajectory seem to be the recurring themes. “Am I on the right path?” “Is this the best place for me and my family?” “Will we have enough!!??”. One day when I am sitting with God and reviewing all this in His presence I can only imagine how He might look back on all of it and smile at me with a look of “was that all really worth it?” Which got me to thinking— does the idea of complaining actually annoy God? At the end of the day, does He tire at the steady stream of grievances from people who cry out in anquish?
To gain some perspective I turned to the Psalms. Although I’d heard and read many of them as part of various bible studies over the years, I’d never actually taken the time to delve into them with intention. Well upon review, and perhaps not surprisingly, they are filled with cries of angst and throes of pain. Countless references that plead for God’s presence, intervention, strength and guidance. There are aching questions of abandonment and dismay of betrayal and isolation, as a turbulent world tears at the Psalmist core. With some research I discovered more than a 1/3 of the Psalms can be characterized as open complaint— or after reading Mark Vroegop’s book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Discovering the Grace of Lament— as cries of lament.
Vroegop paints a wonderful picture of the importance of proper lament. In his book, he sites repeated examples—- a large majority from King David— of people out of options and out of answers. These are open calls for relief from lack of provision, circumstance, physical limitation, family turmoil and social unrest. Enemies wield swords and arrows and sinister foes lurk in the background in anticipation of the faithful’s demise. When you really spend time in it, many of the Psalms read like a tragedy and tale of woe. But here is where Vroegop provides something unexpected. Virtually every Psalm of lament, he notes, ends in some sort of praise. He goes further identifying a consistent pattern at work: a turn to God, followed by an expression of grief or complaint, then an ask for relief, and finally— most importantly— an expression of praise—- an expectation of being heard and a hope of relief. Essentially it is a statement of trust that is laid before God, to say: “Look, this is my plight; I’m definitely not happy about it, I want you to fix it and I’m trusting you’ve heard it and are taking action, even if I don’t see it”. That’s the edited version of just about every lament Psalm.
That was a revelation to me. I’d never actually studied the pattern Vroegop outlined. Intrigued, I turned back to my own journal entries to see if I unwittingly followed the same structure. Well— I nailed the first three parts with stunning accuracy and eloquence. I did turn to God; I complained loudly, I put forth my asks—- demands in some cases. But the “trust” part was almost entirely absent. Most of my “laments” ended at the ask stage and picked up in subsequent entries, following the same 3 step cadence.
Remarkably, with the benefit of hindsight, God tended to answer so many of my requests even in the absence of my trust. And why would He do that? Wouldn’t it make more sense for Him to look at me— to look at all of us— with some degree of betrayal and disappointment? Increasingly I’ve come to see that is not the way God operates at all. Its still a work in process that is unfolding for me but as I look at where God’s presence is best exemplified its in healthy relationship—in expressions of care and connection where the desire to engage is central.
How do I know that? Well, I’m the parent of 3 adult children. We are a close family and we stay in regular touch, though they are busy now with their own lives and own direction. I’ve often said to my wife that the worst thing our adult kids could ever do to us, is to ignore us, to go silent. Not to disagree with us— they do that. Not to argue— that happens too, sometimes with great emotion and vigour. But to ignore us entirely, to not reach out? That would be an abdication of relationship. Silence, when it has happened for whatever reason, creates the most pain and confusion. That’s what we have come to realize.
Is it too much of stretch then to think that God might feel something similar? That perhaps given the choice of hearing our laments or not hearing from us at all, God would choose the former?
I think that’s the point that the Psalms and Vroegop’s work are trying to tell us. There is grace in lament—abundant grace. As a God who values relationship from his own creation, He fully understands our emotions and our plight of existence—- and delights in hearing from us in the midst of all that. Blemished, bruised and unfiltered. And praise God for that.
.