Lament is as much part of faith as prayer
Lament is not something that many people choose to do. Generally speaking, lament is not fun. Lamenting necessarily can dredge up negative emotions, sadness, depression, and even a degree of anger. Lamenting done wrong can be very destructive. However, healthy lament is something many Christians need to do in order to draw closer to God and health the church.
Webster’s defines lament as an expression of “intense sorrow, mourning, or regret” which may manifest in very strong and powerful ways. To be fair, few humans wish to feel such concentrated negative emotion. Sorrow, mourning, and regret hurt. They are emotions that cut into the soul and cause understandable emotional, and perhaps even physical, pain and suffering. By nature, human beings seek to avoid pain so it may seem natural to avoid lament as a legitimate attempt to not hurt or suffer.
Any serious scholar of scripture will recognize that lament is a prominent theme of the Bible. From the heart wrenching Psalms of lament to David’s agony over the death of those he loved, and Jesus’ blood and tears at Gethsemane, not to mention the entire book of Lamentations, this deeply painful human emotion is central to the sacred writings of Christian faith. As such, the Bible serves to give believers a positive witness of the power and importance of lament! Any serious scholar of scripture also recognizes the vitality of healthy lament to a vibrant faith.
Far from simply uncomfortable human emotion, lament is one of the most powerful and profound means of healing and is often a necessary path to wholeness and salvation. Lament forces Christians to come to terms with difficult realities, feel the pain of trauma, admit that we may actually have been wrong, and—perhaps most importantly—experience Divine empathy for others whose lives and experiences have been negatively impacted by us and the church.
Much of Christianity is couched in the language of triumphalism and domination with enthusiastic passions of power and superiority. Sometimes this is disguised in the false belief that a Christian is forgiven and absolved from the past. Pain becomes a reflection of inadequate faith. Sometimes this is expressed in ways that pontificate a false reality that a person of faith must feel only happiness borne of their faith. Tragically, it is often experienced in a form spiritual supremacy that refuses to see the world through the lived experiences of others who do not conform to one’s own doctrinal determination of Scripture’s meaning.
Healthy lament is a form of sacred prayer that lays one’s heat bear to the healing power of the Holy Spirit. The healing begins in the heart, but it expands to others in powerful and profound ways. Healthy lament recognizes that the church has not always been as right, holy, and well-intended as it would like to believe. Healthy lament acknowledges that one’s own self-righteous attitudes of faithful confidence have often caused injury and pain to others. Healthy lament understands how the church, in its passionate determination to win souls for Christ, has often driven them away from God’s love by the church’s own unlamented hatred.
Lament is God’s way of purging the human heart of the destructive arrogance, presumptiveness, hatred, anger, fear, and idolatrous doctrinal adherence which serves to uphold the fallacy of religion in the desire for faithful fidelity. Lament is as much a faithful expression of faith as is prayer, worship, and service—provided it is fueled by the power of the Holy Spirit and not church doctrine, absolutist scriptural adherence, and ardent assumptions of specific sins that one presumptively believes are an abomination to God. Lament is perhaps the most important healing gift from God that the church could use in these heated and contentious days!
This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Lament is as much part of faith as prayer
