Prayer of Lament (Daily Encouragement Series)
Hear my prayer, O LORD; let my cry come to you! Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress! Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call! – Psalm 102:1-2
John Calvin calls the book of Psalms “an anatomy of all parts of the soul; for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror.”
One of the emotions that we all are experiencing to one degree or another is distress. The Psalms have a type of prayer called “Lament” that are a response to distress, suffering, affliction: The lament is the psalmist’s cry when in great distress he has nowhere to turn but to God.
Psalm 102 is prayer of lament that we can both relate to and learn from in dealing with our distress. We see that prayer is: HONEST, EXPECTANT and ROOTED
Honest Prayer — We can’t miss that the psalmist GOES TO GOD – it is what prayer is. “hear my prayer” “let my cry come to you” “do not hide your face from me in the day of my DISTRESS” (v/1-2).
God is loving and big enough to handle our complaints, our struggles (big or small). He is also honest with God about how he feels – He can’t eat (vs. 4/5), feels alone (vs. 6), can’t sleep (7), feels ridiculed (8) is weeping (9). Sound familiar? Suffering has withering effects on our bodies physically and emotionally.
Yesterday was just one of those days when I didn’t have energy, I couldn’t motivate myself, I was struggling to focus on the things I needed to do. I kept trying to figure out what I didn’t do: did I not sleep? Exercise? Eat right? I actually did all those fairly well. It was helpful to just be honest and say “I am probably just in distress. This time is difficult.”
Expectant Prayer – there is a shift in verse 12 where the psalmist takes his eyes off himself and his suffering and places them on God and His glory: “but you, O LORD, are enthroned FOREVER; you are remembered through all Generations.” The psalmist doesn’t fixate on past glory or wrongs, he doesn’t turn to revenge or even recovery: HE IS EXPECTANT OF AND LOOKS TO A BETTER FUTURE. “You will arise and have pity on Zion”, “The appointed time HAS come”, “For the LORD builds up Zion; he appears in his glory” “he regards the prayer of the destitute”.
Our time frames are not in touch with ultimate reality – “Our perspective on time with God’s is analogous to a two year old’s with an adults. God has good reasons for making us wait a long time to see some prayers answered.”
Rooted Prayer – The psalmist roots his prayer in the story of God, the gospel. “Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain….The children of your servants will dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you” (v/24-28). The gospel reveals God’s good creation was infected with distress because of sin, but God entered into it and suffered on the cross so that we might dwell secure and be with Him forever.
“The problem with the secular model (self help) is that it assigns YOU the tasks of creating a story big enough to explain and transform your suffering. No man-made story or “god of our understanding” can do that. The Gospel is the only story that is big and powerful and TRUE enough to EXPLAIN and TRANSFORM our suffering. However well-intentioned it may be, self help fails because it is trying to tackle a God-sized dilemma with man-sized solutions.”
We can be HONEST about our suffering because Jesus suffered like us and FOR us.
We can be EXPECTANT that God will work the suffering for good in HIS timing.
We can be ROOTED in and motivated by God’s story because it is TRUE.