Lament Podcast Episode

How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord, my God. Lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemy say I have prevailed against him. 

And those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Welcome each one to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. 

Today I’m glad to have Ted Whittick Jr. With me by way of phone. Welcome Ted. Thanks, Matt. It’s great to be with you today. Ted, we, we are living in uncharted times, and we are all, if not personally, incurring loss. We all, by matter of reverberation, are taking on loss. We don’t know what loss is yet coming. 

The topic here today is going to address that head on. Yes. And knit into that psalm that you just read, psalm 13 is a tremendous shape and that shape we’re calling lament. Yes, and lament is something that is right in the scripture and it speaks to a variety of painful emotions from loss, to disappointment, to frustration, to repentance. 

There are so many different themes that Lament takes on, and it’s just beautiful because God has put it right in the scripture, and I hope that today we can just make it come alive for people. There’s something really powerful here with Lament. Would we start by a definition? Lament is a prayer in pain, that leads to trust. 

I have to tell you, this is a topic that is well ingrained in scripture with one third of the Psalms being laments. Ted, just by what you said there, you made a case to say crying is Christian. Yes. I’m going to go even a bit beyond that and say that God provided lament for us, included it on purpose in the scripture so that we would have a vehicle to deal with very human questions that we have as, as believers. 

And those human questions are things like, God, where are you in this? Or God, But if you love me, why is this happening to me? And sometimes as believers, we think, ah, can I even say that out loud? Can I, can I feel that? Psalm 22, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It was actually the lament that Jesus quoted on the cross when he was on the cross. 

Yeah. Isn’t that amazing? All right. So you’re building an argument that says that God has given us the ability to lament and it’s well evidenced in men and women of faith through the scriptures. Can you pull out a few? I mean, you’ve mentioned the quintessential one, Jesus himself, but pull out a few others. 

David, of course, in the Psalms lamented. Hannah lamented. Job. Lamented. The book of Lamentations by Jeremiah. If I understand Lamentation, it’s quite a poetic, masterful book that Jeremiah puts together with a great deal of thought. It’s him almost calculating lament. Does that make sense? Yeah. And, and what I want you to remember here about it is that lament is an honest cry of the heart. 

Okay? It’s an honest cry of the heart. To God, and it is our nature, Matt, that when we cry, okay, when we cry out, we oftentimes, instead of turning toward God with our cry, my nature, that when I hurt, I go inside into my head and try to figure it out. And this is an honest cry to God. And here’s the thing. 

Where we’re at is we’re in this place of going, okay, I know that God is good and I know the promises of God But then we also go I know With the other hand i’m in pain right now, and this doesn’t make sense So with my right hand i’ve got this the promises of god and the faithfulness of god with my left hand I’ve got the pain that i’m in and the questions I have lament Is the bridge between the pain Yeah. 

And that’s what God invites us into. You know, a word that you mentioned a few times there, Ted, is honesty. Yes. Okay. So let me set this up like this because we understand dishonesty when it comes to these areas of pain in our life. How many of us have said when we’ve been asked, how are you doing? We say, Oh, just fine. 

Okay. And, and that’s not the case at all. That’s right. And I’m not, and I’m not saying there’s not, there’s not a place to say I’m fine when you’re not. Okay. So that’s not the point, but, but we ought not do that with Jesus. Yes. We ought not do that with God. Right. Does that make sense? That’s exactly right. 

And that’s what, as you spoke about that, Ted, God, God is a God of truth. Yeah. God is a God of truth. Yeah. And, and he wants us to be completely free. And I see what you’re saying here, the lament takes the raw reality and allows the truth of it to be directed towards God. That’s correct. And I think that that is exactly what scares people about lament. 

It’s really saying, wait a minute, can I be this honest with God? Can I say it like this? Aren’t I doing something that is an affront to God? So I want to say right now. Okay, I am not saying that this is about us coming to God like we are God’s judge. We’re coming to him in trust going, this doesn’t make sense to me. 

And what I like is that because the scripture has laid it out for us, It’s a pattern. He included it all throughout the Bible. And that’s the beauty of it is he’s given us some templates. He’s given us templates for people who are worried. He’s given us templates for people who are, who are frustrated. 

He’s given Psalms about exasperation and grief, and even just this, the sense of disbelief, all those things. But here’s the thing. Each of those people have turned to him. Towards God to tell him about it. And that’s such a key. That is such a key because you know what, when we are hurt, when the things of life come in and they hurt so bad, the losses, okay, the losses that people have in their lives that take your breath away. 

There are some people listening right now who have what I’m going to say are like big T traumas, okay, and, and, or big G griefs all the way down to little G griefs and little T traumas and little L losses. I’m not trying to minimize or make one good or bad, I will just say it this way, that we can come to God with it all. 

And I would say that he invites us to come to God. with it. And that’s what I want to invite our listeners to do is to think about it, that it is, it’s really an invitation to bring our whole selves before God. There’s something so moving to me to think that God has provided a way for us to live in the broken realities that we live in. 

And it’s not pretending that. It’s not broken and it’s not just pull yourself up by the bootstraps, but it’s almost like God says they need to be equipped. With a way to express the hurt that they incur because of the brokenness and is a lament part of that answer? I believe so, Matt. You know, as believers, we would say we are not in a perfected place. 

We’re going to a perfected place. Every believer is going, but I think the key here is that God understands we’re in that place and he also understands that we are human beings. Think about that beautiful verse in Hebrews about Jesus saying that we have not a high priest who could not be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but, but knows what infirmity is, you know, and, and I’m very thankful for that. 

I think the other thing that I would say about this is it takes faith to lament. Because that first step of a lament is to turn to God. You perceived my question, Ted, when you say first step, you are now saying, there is a way to do this. Yeah. And I think that’s very welcome right now, Ted, and I think it’s time to go there. 

We’re wondering, okay, how do I do this? And so, I’m going to lay out four steps and I didn’t come up with these four steps. We’ll put in the show notes some additional resources for people to learn more, but I just want to lay out four steps to walk through and that you can use as a template for lament in the Scripture. 

And I’m going to explain each of the steps first, and then we’re going to go through Psalm 13 and show how this comes out. So, the first step is to turn toward God. The second step is the complaint. Now that’s going to surprise some people. Like, wait a minute, complaining is bad. 

And I’m going to suggest that lament always has as part of it, telling God what is wrong. Step three is the request. It’s the ask. It’s asking God for something. And then step four is the trust. It is the expression of trust or praise. And so, you can put these things into four words. To turn, complain, ask, and trust. 

So, let’s walk through Psalm 13 here. So, the first thing I want you to note as we look at this whole Psalm is it is addressed to God. Okay? It is only six verses, but I want you to notice how different verse one is to verse six, because it sounds like it’s written by a different person in a different time and place. 

But the reason is it’s going through the steps of lament. Okay? So, this whole thing is addressed to God. So, notice the first two verses here, how it is a complaint. Here we go. How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long will thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? 

How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Notice there are four how longs, okay? Listen to the complaint. Yeah. How long are you going to forget me forever, he says? How long are you going to hide your face from me? Brutally honest. And so, when I talk about complaint, that’s what I’m talking about. 

It could be Lord; how could my loved one have died at this time? It doesn’t make sense. You know, Lord, downsizing now when we were just getting on our feet. Okay? You see what I’m saying? Yes. It’s that kind of a question. And I think that’s the complaint part. Okay? Now, the second part, and it’s important to verbalize this, right, Ted? 

Yes. To cry it out to God? Yes. Certainly, David wrote it, and it became maybe even hymnody to them. Yes. But I don’t know what you would say about the mode that we should be using. You know what’s very interesting, Matt? That is many of the psalms, and many of the laments. Yeah. They actually became the hymn book. 

And so, can you imagine not only somebody saying it, but then the community singing it? Well, and that raises another interesting point, Ted. If we were to take all of our hymnody or the songs that we sing, Christian songs that we sing, I’m not sure a third of them would be laments. 

That’s a very small fraction. In fact, I would have a hard time coming up with a purely lament hymn. And all I’m trying to point out is I’m not sure this discipline is knit into our whatever. Do you know what, Matt, I’m going to say that I think you’re exactly right there. It’s not knit in. And that’s why I was so excited when I came across this, and again, I did not discover this. 

I didn’t come up with this, but when it came, it was one of those treasures that was in front of me all the time. And then when I started to see it and I started to share it with my clients, okay, everyone, when they heard it, there’s a part of our souls that goes, that speaks. Yeah.  

And you know what? I do believe that because it’s not part of our vocabulary, not part of our practice. You know what happens? It leads us to two places. It either leads us to this kind of a Christian denial. The other extreme is because I know that I have this rawness, because I know that I have a disappointment that I have to turn away from God. Yeah, that I have to turn away from the body of believers. Everybody else seems like oh, you know, they have a bad day. They may shed a tear and then are over it. Yeah, why am I having such difficulty getting over this particular thing? And so, the two extremes are to be swallowed up by the pain and never get to a place of healing. 

Yeah, on the other hand I’m just going to go into this denial that I have pain or that others have pain. And that’s the beauty of this is it invites us number one, to take our pain to God. And it actually brings our pain into the community. And I think, oh Lord, thank you. Okay, bringing our lament into community, that’s a powerful statement, Ted. 

I think you’ve just taken another fork in the road in this conversation, because as of now, I’ve been thinking privately about my lament. Okay, I can see these steps in my own prayer closet, but as you mentioned, these were hymns sung in the Hebrew congregation. There was a communal lament, there was a space for us to cry out together. 

That’s right. Is that true? That’s right. And I think they certainly started out as very private pain that was shared. But I think what you find is that there is in the body of believers a wonderful soothing when we can share the pain of our hearts with each other and then pray for one another. 

Lift one another up, okay? Because, you know what, Matt. And you’ve had this, and I’ve had this, we’ve had times where we have needed people to come alongside us to lift up our arms. Yes. And Ted, if I can put my finger on what I believe to be an incredible hope here that I think will help release us to lament, and that is that God has allowed a way for us to process lament. 

And for us to do something with our loss that’s not fixing it. Yeah. Yes. I’ve only had one category for my loss. Does that make sense? Fixing. Yep. And if I’m going to step into another person’s life who has incurred loss, and I only have one category of help, and that’s fixing. That’s right. Well, I’m going to keep my distance. 

That’s right. We want to fix it. That means, to many of us, that means to tie it up with a bow. That’s right. Okay. It means to make sense of it and put it in a box, put a bow on it and put it on a shelf. Oh, how I wish it was that easy. Actually, this is about a process. I will tell you as a counselor, I have sat with hundreds of people, thousands of counseling hours. 

Okay, where the question of why was raw in the middle of that session. And I can tell you that I didn’t know the answer to why. I was sitting there with them in the pain. Yes. There is a path through the woods. Yes. With the loss that I’ve got. And that is lament. But there is also duty and opportunity for the community to lament alongside. 

And the answer is not going to be in the fixing, but it’s going to be in the turning to God together, complaining to God together, asking. That’s right. Being bold with our ask. Yes. I can only imagine the powerful effect that will have on the individual in particular and in the community as a whole. 

Yes. I think what it does is build a sense of community. It helps us to be authentic with each other and with God and just to walk alongside of each other. What a witness too, Ted. Oh yeah. I mean, our neighbors are incurring great loss right now. I don’t need to provide an answer to my neighbor, but boy, I can sure lament with them. 

And what a way to share Christ even to model that because that’s where our communities and our neighborhoods are at this point in time too. Yes. The next two verses in Psalm 13 come directly after the complaint. And it says this, it’s the ask consider and hear me. Oh Lord my God, lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. 

His ask was, consider and hear me, lighten my eyes. I want you to notice what he does and doesn’t do here. The ask is a big ask, okay? It is a big ask, but it also is leaving the outcome to God. And that must be our transition, then, to trust. Yes. And I think that the thing about the next phase, is we pivot now. You’ll see this whole psalm pivoting to trust is quite stark. It is essentially making a statement in the direction of praise or trust. It is walking in faith. It is saying this is what I believe is true even if my feelings haven’t caught up to this yet. 

So, listen to this, but I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Notice that that expression of trust says, this is what I believe. Now, I want to read verse 1, and I want to read verse 6. Okay? Verse 1, How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? 

Okay, Verse 6, I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me. Remember lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust. Now I want to say one other thing about this is I don’t think that lament is a one and done. Okay. Yeah. And I think that’s really important. Because if somebody looks at this as a formula to say, if I go through these four steps and I hurt at the beginning and by the end I won’t ever feel it again, they’re going to misunderstand. 

It is a process of being able to walk it through. And to that point, David didn’t just have one Psalm of lament. No. And he not only didn’t have just one Psalm of lament, he had different kinds of lament. You know, as you read that first verse and then you read the last verse, there is a real purpose. 

Lament that it’s transformative, isn’t it? Yes. I mean, that’s transformative. Yes. There is a shape to lament, and we, personally, our own souls, our own hearts, take on that shape from complaint to ask to trust. As you say over and over again. That’s right. We express our pain and then we remind ourselves of the truths of our belief and who our God is and then we make the commitment to take steps in that direction. 

But understand that doesn’t just happen. We don’t just flip a switch and that’s where we need the body of believers to walk alongside of us through it. The other day one of my children came to me and I don’t know what triggered it, but I realized that there was sorrow and fear in her heart. 

She had masked it pretty well. In fact, if you were to have asked me prior to that, hey, how is so and so doing with all of this? I would have said without a hitch. But when she conveyed to me the realness of her heart, I as a father was moved to receive it. And I wanted nothing else but for her to be brutally honest. 

Can we expect that’s the way God wants us to be? I want to say that I believe that Scripture has included lament to show us that God provides for us a way to be honest and open with him. In that full expression of human emotion, and it’s really beautiful. I think this gives us purpose. How many of us now are saying, what do I do? 

What can I possibly do? I don’t have the skills to help at the hospital. We raise up our hands in exasperation. I wonder if God is calling us to lament. There is reason for us to lament and to cry out to him, not only on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of the loss of so many. And I think when that happens, Ted, our hearts start to view people like God views people. 

We start to almost get aligned, in a sense, with God’s heart and view and reaction to the circumstances around us. Yeah, you know what, Matt, I think the model that Scripture gives us is to come alongside. And when we have a neighbor somebody at church or just even to understand the struggle going on in the world more broadly, to have a picture of the heart of God to love. 

So, to come seek to comfort and just to come alongside so that people don’t have to be alone in whatever circumstance that they’re going through. Thanks Ted. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for sharing on this important topic. Hey, thank you, Matt. It’s been great to be with you today. And to each of you, our listeners, thanks. 

Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. Thanks for giving us your attention. We hope that lament can bless you. We hope that lament can be a God honoring way to process our unfortunate circumstances in this day.