June 7, 2025 • 79 mins
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast, where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I am Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Follower of Christ.
(00:29):
Hey everybody, welcome toFaithfully Living, the Podcast,
where we strive to encourage youto live for Christ faithfully
by offering guidance on how tostudy the Bible, how to
understand the Bible better andhow to remain faithful to
historic Christianity in acontemporary society.
And today I'm excited to haveKelly Johnson on the podcast
again.
And today we're going to diveinto the topic of lament.
(00:51):
It's a topic that Christiansoften overlook.
You know, the world tells us tosuppress our sorrow or to rush
past our pain, but the Biblegives us a different perspective
.
We can see in Psalms andLamentations.
Even Jesus himself shows us andgives an example on how to to
(01:17):
lament and show us that it's nota lack of faith but it's an
expression of trust and hope inGod.
So what does it mean to lamentbiblically?
How can we bring our grief toGod in a way that strengthens
our faith?
So in this conversation I hadwith Kelly, we're going to kind
(01:38):
of go over like the power oflament and how it can help us
draw closer to God.
But before we start ourconversation, let me tell you a
little bit about Kelly if youhaven't heard her on the podcast
before.
She is a homeschool mom ofthree wonderful children.
For over a decade, kelly hashoned her writing skills and
(02:01):
passion for making the difficultthings in life more easily
understood in a variety ofapplications.
She is married to a verypatient and godly man.
For almost 20 years she hasbeen supported, has been
supported in all of herendeavors of learning, growing
and sharing that knowledge withwhoever God gives opportunity to
(02:23):
Learning to walk with the Lord.
While constantly plagued byundiagnosed medical issues,
kelly has shifted her injuriesto creating curriculum and Bible
studies for women and youth inher local community.
She teaches apologetics as wellas a variety of topics such as
(02:44):
covenants, lament and suffering,old Testament studies, the
meta-narrative of the Bible andmore.
In her local church, women'sBible studies and two youth
groups.
You can occasionally find heron YouTube at Apologetically
Female, and it also on.
(03:05):
You can read some of herwritings on her blog,
apologeticfemaleblogspotcom.
All right, let's dive intotoday's episode.
Hi Kelly, welcome back to theshow.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Hi, it's so good to be back.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I'm excited about this topic of lament.
I haven't delved in it a lot,but I'm excited to hear your
take on it and what you'velearned about it.
So let's kind of dive in withlike a definition what is
biblical lament, and how wouldit be different from like
(03:52):
complaining or despair?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, I think well.
So if you look up lament, likeI have the Oxford Dictionary
definition and according to thedictionary they say it's a
passionate expression of griefor sorrow.
And then if you go intogotquestionsorg a really helpful
(04:17):
website if you haven't beenthere before but they say to
lament is to express deep regret, grief or sorrow.
We can lament through words oractions, and my definition,
after many years of studying andlearning and reading about it
through scripture, is kind of alittle bit longer than that.
(04:41):
So my personal definition islament is a prayer of faith.
Despite our pain and fear.
Lament opens our eyes to thebrokenness in the world around
us and awakens our soul fromapathy.
It is a prayer in pain thatleads to trust, and so that's
kind of like my summary oflament.
(05:03):
But basically lament is just aform of prayer and I love how
Professor NT Wright says.
He says when we are indwelt bythe Holy Spirit, then somehow
God is praying within us for thepain around us.
So it's not just like this,maybe what we would perceive as
(05:28):
a passive thing.
You know, when Jesus taught hisdisciples to pray, he wasn't
just giving them something topass the time, but he was
inviting them and inviting us toparticipate in the arrival of
the kingdom by his spirit.
And lament is kind of how we dothat.
So it's basically like howChristians grieve biblically
(05:51):
because we're in this tension ofthe already but not yet, and we
have to live that out.
Somehow we have to wrestle withthe brokenness of the world and
the promises that we know wehave in Christ.
And so you know, when we lamentbiblically, when we pray this
(06:17):
form of prayer which we'll getinto and how we do that and what
it looks like, but we basicallywe name our pain, we question
boldly and we protestpassionately, but it's all
within the covenantalrelationship that we have with
God.
So really, only biblical lamentis something that Christians
(06:40):
can do because it's in thecontext of covenant, and so this
differs from complaining oreven despair, because complaint
really stems from pride.
We don't want to always admitthat, but when we complain we
presume that God somehow owes usan explanation.
(07:04):
Whatever's happening, itmurmurs against his character,
often behind his back, so it'snot usually to him but about him
, and most of the time it'srefusing to trust God's hand.
When his ways are hidden fromus, we can look at like the
(07:24):
Israelites in the wildernessright.
They're complaining about theirprovisions and, you know,
grumbling about the manna andthe quail, and then they're
longing for the chains of Egypt.
So that would be a good exampleof complaining.
So we want to like, compare andcontrast the two side by side.
(07:44):
So we want to compare andcontrast the two side by side.
If lament is expressed to God,then complaint is just expressed
about God, or lament points toGod and gives us a testimony,
(08:05):
but complaint hurts our witnessabout God.
Lament is going to demonstratefaith in God's goodness and
power and complaint demonstratesto the world our unbelief
(08:25):
outward and then upward.
So if we think of theprogression me, god, others
that's kind of the directionthat lament will take us.
Complaint always looks inwardor it's very self-focused.
Lament is a prayer, complaintis a gripe.
Lament is a releasing ofemotion, of mourning, that it's
heard beyond human ears, kind oflike the first point.
(08:50):
It expresses it to God, wherecomplaint and often turns into
outbursts of selfishness,usually to other humans, so it's
not typically to God.
Lament is always going to stemfrom a biblical worldview, where
complaint is from a secularworldview, and we I'll talk more
(09:11):
in detail as we kind of buildon the idea of how we lament
from that.
But then lament is also.
It's a journey that we go fromsorrow to joy or fear to trust.
It's a process.
But complaint kind of causes usto pit stop and stay stuck
(09:32):
where we are and lament isalways going to show our heart
condition and it creates arestoration and a renewal and
it's part of their redemptionand the redemptive story that
God's working out in history,where complaint is going to
(09:53):
ignore the heart condition andit's going to turn bitter and
destructive.
So I mean, and if you want totake it further, you know you
could have a complaint and thenthat can go into despair, which
is darker even than complaint,because it's just the Easter I
know this podcast will come outin a little bit, but we just
(10:28):
celebrated Easter and what abeautiful picture of hope that
we can cling to.
But despair kind of releasesthat hope, it like cuts that
cord of trust and it says thatyou know, I think of like Psalm
three, where it's there is nohelp for me in God, but without
(10:49):
adding the second part thatDavid adds that you, o Lord, are
a shield about me and so, likeI said, because of Christ's
resurrection we have eternalhope.
You know, psalm 30 reminds usthat weeping may stay for the
night, but rejoicing comes inthe morning.
And so lament kind of holdsthese two seemingly opposing
(11:12):
truths in tension.
It acknowledges that we havedeep suffering and evil, and it
doesn't minimize that, but itmaintains, kind of almost a
stubborn face, that God hears usand sees us and he will act,
even if it's not yet, or even ifit's not in the way we would
(11:33):
choose for him to act.
I think of, you know, psalm 42,11, and it says why are you
cast down, oh my soul?
Why are you in turmoil withinme?
Hope in God, for I shall againpraise him, my salvation and my
God.
And so lament is just thisbeautiful language that God
(11:59):
gives us to wrestle this out, torecognize the hurt and the
brokenness that everybody atsome point in their life will
experience, some more thanothers.
But yet there's this crux ofthis is really hard, this is
(12:28):
really hard, but christ is risen, you know, and so that's kind
of the difference betweenbiblical lament and complaining
and then, um, even despair, ifyou want to go even further than
that so I guess I can see how.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Why is important for us, like in our Christian faith,
to have that part of, like yousaid, it's a prayer that we give
to God and that how we'rewrestling with you know things
that we're dealing with in theworld today.
So how do we see this practicein scripture?
Speaker 2 (13:11):
in scripture.
Yeah, so it's really importantand it's hard to remember, but
it's really important that while, like, the circumstances of our
life have a narrative to them,there's, like there's this
biblical narrative that runsunderneath all of it and we need
to understand the story, orwhat some people call like the
meta-narrative, the entirepicture that scripture gives us
(13:32):
from Eden to the new Jerusalem,because it's his story and we're
woven into it.
And Chad Bird says it this wayhe's a very, very smart
theologian, but he saysrehearsing the truth of the
Bible reaches to your heart andit allows you to interpret pain
(13:54):
through the lens of God'scharacter.
And so lament is so importantfor the Christian faith because
it's the language of a peoplewho know the whole story, which
is the gospel story.
And I think that if we don'thave a language or we don't have
(14:16):
words to give to our experience, to give to our pain or our
hurt or our story, basically,then we're going to be stuck in
kind of this stoic silence.
And God, you know, even all theway back in the garden, god
(14:40):
calls to Adam and Eve in theirbrokenness you know where are
you?
He's asking that not because hedoesn't know where they are,
because he wants them to respond.
So it's this beautiful languagethat he gives us and he gives
(15:03):
his people, to those of us whowe know that this world is not
as it should be, and only he canset it right.
So it teaches us to kind ofsuffer towards God, not away
from him, and I think that's areally important point is that
suffering can do one of twothings it can draw you away from
him or it can press you deeperinto him, and so lament is a
(15:28):
language that helps us reachback out to him, and we see it
in Job.
You know Job's sitting in theashes.
He's demanding answers, buthe's refusing to curse God, even
though everyone around him,including his wife, is telling
him to do so.
We see it with David in thePsalms, while he's on the run
(15:54):
from Saul, and then later, whenhe's even grieving his own sin.
We see it in Jeremiah, who'sknown as the weeping prophet.
In Jeremiah, who's known as theweeping prophet, and he's
mourning the fall of Jerusalemand lamentations with very
brutal honesty but unyieldinghope, right.
(16:15):
We even see it in like Habakkuk, when he's wrestling with
confusion.
And yet he still ends his prayerwith, like this, this trembling
trust, and and we see it, youknow, with the barren women
throughout scripture.
We see it in church history.
(16:35):
You know the saints lamentingbecause they know and we know
that we're living in a story ofredemption that's not yet
complete.
We're living in a story ofredemption that's not yet
complete, and so we are standingbetween the promise and its
fulfillment and we're, you know,we're crying out kind of like
in the Psalms, like how long, ohLord?
(16:59):
Not because maybe wenecessarily doubt God, but
because we trust him enough thatwe know that he's not just left
us there, he's reaching out tous and we're reaching back.
But it's this tension ofalready but not yet.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, we can see it like you said, kind of like all
through scripture.
But we can see it, like yousaid, kind of like all through
scripture, but we can.
I know you quoted Psalms andLamentations.
I think sometimes we see that alittle bit more in those books.
So what can Psalms andLamentations teach us on how to
(17:43):
lament in ways that are honoringto God?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah, I find it very helpful.
So about I guess it's beeneight years now when I got
seriously ill and doctors stilldon't know what's wrong with me,
and I didn't have my own wordsto pray because I was just in so
(18:10):
much pain and I wasn't raisedwith lament as I think a lot of
people in the church are not andso I didn't even know what
lament was.
I'd never heard that word.
And so I didn't even know whatlament was.
(18:35):
I'd never heard that word.
But I just started reading thePsalms and Lamentations because
I deeply connected with them andthey resonated with me.
The words in them brought suchlike peace, was that?
Uh, you see, that lament is notlike this chaotic venting,
right, there's actually like astructure to how lament is, is
(18:55):
done, um and and.
As you read through the psalmsand even lamentations, and then
job, and then Job and all theseexamples that we have, we see
that there's always a God, isalways addressed directly.
So kind of, like I said in thebeginning, right, lament is to
(19:18):
God, not about God.
So we see, you know, oh God, myGod, right, even, even Christ,
(19:41):
it's a, it's a direct address to.
God himself, and then we seethis kind of honest complaint
brought to him, something to theeffect of why have you hidden
your face, or how long, o Lord?
And then oftentimes we'll see abold cry for help.
You know, arise, o Lord.
Or or David, you know, likelike, take out my enemies, like
he's.
He's very bold in his, in hisasking for help, his asking for
(20:11):
help.
But every lament is going toeventually maybe not right away,
and, as we personally learn tolament, this part will take time
but eventually there's going tobe a choice to trust.
And this is the yet in thelaments that we see.
So we can say, oh, oh God, youknow, my God, why have you
hidden your face?
Arise, oh Lord.
Or.
But yet I will rejoice in theGod of my salvation, or yet I
(20:36):
will trust you.
And so these prayers they're,you know, soaked with raw
emotion, but they're never agodless rage or faithless
despair.
They're always going to clingto God's character, his
steadfast love, faithfulness,justice, even when the
(21:22):
circumstances seem to justscream the opposite.
We can just go through these,what I call, I consider
liturgies.
So lately I've been kind ofdown a rabbit trail of liturgies
, not in the like Catholic sense, or, although they do have many
liturgies, but just more in thehabit forming that liturgies
(21:44):
create in our lives.
So lament is, you know, one ofthose things, and we have to do
it in spite of the circumstancesand in spite of how maybe we're
feeling, because it's still anact of faith to trust God and
(22:04):
His promises, especially whenwe're in the middle of the hurt
and it doesn't feel like he canhear us or he's near, but he
tells us that he is near and hetells us that he does hear.
And so you know, it's just,there's a kind of beautiful
(22:28):
symmetry and cadence andstructure to how we do this, and
Psalms of Lamentations kind ofoutlines it for us us.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I know, I know.
I always a lot of times like ifI'm going through something
hard.
I always turn to psalms as faras giving me, like you said,
that language to express ourlike emotions to the lord, to
let him know, even though healready, but just to voice them
to him and let him know how wefeel.
But, I have never I guess Inever thought about turning to
lamentation, so I'll have to dothat in my, in my reading of
(23:14):
Psalms too.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah Well, and interesting with lamentations is
it doesn't really end with aton of hope.
It ends sadly, uh, but but like, that's why the, the meta
narrative is so important,because scripture doesn't end
right at the end of lamentations, right, we have to keep going
um and uh.
(23:37):
And so, although the thestructure that we see for a
lament, there might be morespace between.
You know step three of askinghelp boldly to the choosing to
trust.
You know there can be time andspace between that and that's
(23:57):
okay because we serve a verypatient and loving God who, as
long as we are not pulling awayfrom him or growing bitter in
our silence, you know he willgive us that time to process.
Um, because there's deep hurt inthe world and people are
(24:18):
suffering greatly, um, and, andwe have a God that doesn't
minimize that right.
He doesn't say get over it it,or, you know, go through this
four step process and everythingwill be fine.
Right, like it's a journey andit's.
it's messy sometimes because itgives us structure and it gives
(24:49):
us um uh like a steadiness, kindof like god's character, right
it, let's um, this uh,predictable um pattern in our
hearts and our minds that we canjust go over and over and over
again, however many times weneed to.
It's not a one prayer and done,it's the constant.
You know speaking after him,learning his character, being
(25:13):
honest with him.
You know I think of, you know,covenantal relationship.
I've been married almost 20years and it's kind of the same
right Other than you know we'reboth sinners and you know God's
perfect.
But this kind of coming backtogether, coming back together,
(25:33):
coming back together working itout, you know allowing the Lord
to work on your heart.
As more time passes, heart, asmore time passes, as you learn
who he is, more and more abouthis love and his plan and his
purpose, not just for you butfor all creation.
There's no real arrival right.
(25:57):
It's a continual sanctificationand process of a relationship
and that's what he desires fromus anyways.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
So you know, when Jesus was on the earth, you know
he's fully God and fully man.
He taught us a lot of thingsand he modeled a lot of things.
So did Jesus model like lamentin his earthly ministry, maybe
like in the garden of Gethsemaneor on the cross?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
yeah, yeah, he was a great um image of lament, um,
you know, in in the garden he Imean, he sweat blood and he
prayed like if there's any otherway, lord, you know, you know.
Please let this pass Um, andthis wasn't rebellion, this
(26:48):
wasn't um like he had somehow adifferent will than God's.
But um, but this is just asurrender, through the agony, of
what he had to walk through, um, which is what we're called to
as well.
And you know, on the cross hecries out the lament of Psalm
(27:09):
22,.
You know, my God, my God, whyhave you forsaken me?
And I think about you, knowlike, in his final breath, jesus
bore the full weight of ourabandonment.
And yet even then, right thatword yet again, you'll see it
(27:30):
come up all the time.
Yet even then he cried out toGod, not away from God.
And you know, if we ever wonderhow we should be walking as
humans through this broken world, he's our image, he's our
(27:54):
picture of how to do it and howto do it well.
And so even Christ laments.
You know he weeps when hisfriend Lazarus dies.
He knew he was going to raisehim from the dead, and yet he
(28:16):
still grieves the brokenness ofthe world.
And so I just love that Jesusteaches us that, like lament and
emotion and hurt is not a signof weak faith, but it is a sign
of faith that is willing tobleed.
And you know, we see that backin the garden as he wrestled
through the agony.
(28:36):
So it's.
I find Christ's lamentsincredibly powerful because, I
mean, he's fully God and fullyman and he leaves perfection and
(28:58):
he comes down into the pain andthe brokenness.
You know, he's the man ofsorrows, christ himself, like um
.
We do not have a God whodoesn't know what it's like Um,
and he shows us how to do thisUm.
But even on the cross, hereaches out to God with his
(29:22):
final breath.
He doesn't pull away from him,and I think that's something we
need to really take note of andtry to model as best we can in
our suffering as well.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, and I know a lot of times, you know, as
Christians we struggle with, youknow, expressing our sorrow and
grief to God, and why do youthink that that's something that
we often overlook, likelamenting?
Why don't we do it more asbelievers today?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah, I think there's a couple.
It takes effort and repetition.
You know, prayer is kind oflike a muscle, right, and hope
springs from truth rehearsed, soit's kind of like that liturgy
right.
The things we do over and overagain, those habit forming
(30:21):
practices that form and shapenot only our life but our
worldview and and ourunderstanding of God's character
as well.
And so, you know, the, thepractice of lament, the kind
that's like biblical and honest,it's not natural for us because
(30:43):
it's prayer.
It's not natural for us becauseit's prayer and and our prayer
tends to be pretty shallow.
Um, if we, if we're going to behonest, right, a lot of times
it's, you know, bless my kids,bless my husband, bless my day
you know, thank you for yoursalvation, um, but I, you know,
(31:03):
I think of jacob wrestling withthe angel and it was like all
night wrestling and and even inthat, you know, he was like no,
I'm not letting go, and, um, andI think that that is I always
tell my students like OldTestament, like physical Old
(31:28):
Testament pictures typicallypoint to a New Testament,
spiritual truth, and so when wesee like this wrestling in the
Old Testament, we should wonderhow then that translates to our
life?
Right, how then that translatesto our life?
Right, like in the spirit.
And we don't wrestle very wellspiritually, because it takes
(31:49):
time, it takes effort and ittakes practice.
Yeah, and you know we have to,we have to ask ourselves like
are we okay, or are we going toaccept the invitation to
suffering?
(32:10):
And as Christians, especiallywhen comfort is such an idol in
our hearts and our lives, wedon't, you know, we don't want
to do that.
I don't have this quote infront of me, but CS Lewis said
it kind of this way, hopefullyI'll get it right.
He said we don't necessarilydoubt God's best for our lives,
(32:35):
but we do wonder how painfulGod's best will be for us, us,
and I think that that is reallykind of the crux of the issue
with us, especially sincecomfort is such an idol for us.
I think the second thing is that, you know, kind of building on
(32:56):
that, is that modernChristianity, western modern
Christianity we love this kindof triumphalism, right, like we
love to rush to Easter Sundaybut we kind of skip over a good
Friday Right, or we think faithmeans smiling through the
suffering, or we try to bottleup our grief and pretend at
(33:19):
strength.
Strength, we don't.
You know, in our churches wedon't sing songs of lament
anymore.
A lot of times from the pulpitwe get a lot of sermons on
victory without acknowledgingthe valleys.
Yeah, and our culture, we prizecontrol and lament is dangerous
(33:46):
in that it admits that we'repowerless to fix ourselves.
Yeah, it acknowledges that wecannot do this and we're not
doing it, and so, essentially,lament doesn't sell well, you
know it's it doesn't.
It doesn't sell well, itdoesn't look fun.
(34:25):
It's something that we have tobe comfortable being
uncomfortable and that takespractice and it takes a cultural
shift in the church to lamenttogether, to lament corporately,
(34:46):
to lament individually, andit's hard, you know, people
don't want to admit that thingsin their life are hard.
They don't want people to seetheir weaknesses.
And it's so interesting becauseScripture tells us that when
we're weak, christ is madestrong, like, like he shows
(35:08):
himself stronger in ourweaknesses and so, um, but it
just it doesn't look very good,right, I think.
Finally, you know, it takesfaith to lament and we it seeks
(35:30):
understanding, but it's itunderstands that we are not
dependent on that understanding.
You know, job cried out forunderstanding and God responded
with where were you when Icreated all things right?
Like he points to his majestyand his glory and his
understanding.
And God responded with wherewere you when I created all
things right?
Like he points to to hismajesty and his glory and his?
You know, it don't never reallyget an answer, yeah, and that's
(36:01):
that's really hard for us, butwe do know that it leads us back
to a place of hope.
You know we are longing for theshalom of God, which was
vandalized back in Genesis 3.
Shalom, that peace, and shalomis kind of a bigger word than
just peace, as most Hebrew wordsare, but it encompasses this
kind of wholeness that we lostin the garden.
(36:23):
This kind of wholeness that welost in the garden but that's
being renewed.
We know that God is working outthe renewal and restoration of
all of that, and we see evennature lamenting or groaning
(36:44):
with hopeful expectation,because we're all looking
forward to that Revelation 21promise of he will wipe away
every tear and there will nolonger be death or sorrow, or
anguish, crying or pain.
But we're not quite there yet,and so in the meantime, it takes
practice, it takes work, ittakes faith and it takes
(37:05):
community to work through lament.
It's just something, it's askill we have to get better at.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
So what encouragement can you offer?
You know us when we're you, youknow we want to have that
control, even though you knowbasically we're not.
But we, we have an idea that weare.
So what encouragement can youlike give us that sometimes we
see it may be a lack of faith orwe can't do things ourselves
(37:39):
yeah, um, I think that's such animportant question.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I would say this God invites your lament.
He, excuse me, he goes to anorphanage in Russia.
As they were in the process ofpursuing adoption and he said
(38:07):
the silence from the nursery wasalmost eerie.
The babies in the cribs theynever cried.
Not because they never neededanything, but because they had
learned that no one cared enoughto answer their cries Makes me
kind of emotional thinking aboutthat.
So children who are confidentof the love of a caregiver cry.
(38:32):
So for the Christian, ourlament when taken to our
heavenly creator, our father,this is proof of our
relationship with god.
Um, and I just think thatpaints such a powerful picture
(38:54):
um, god invites your lament.
He wants us to cry out to himquite the opposite of what adam
did in the garden.
Right, where are you?
He hid himself Because you know, god's throne of grace is not
reserved for the victorious,it's for the weary, it's for the
(39:14):
brokenhearted, it's for thedoubting.
To cry before God is not tohave a lack of faith, but it's
to live out your faith.
Psalm 56.8 tells us that theLord keeps every tear in a
bottle, so he doesn't despiseour sorrows, he gathers them up.
(39:40):
Gathers them up.
I think that's a verycompelling picture of the care
that God gives our pain.
You know that he's capturingthem all in a bottle.
So maybe, instead of viewingcrying out or bringing your pain
(40:00):
before God as a lack of faith,maybe view it as an offering,
you know, a sacrifice ofbrokenness that God sees as
precious, because, unlike thebabies in the cribs, we have a
father who cares.
You know, god himself lamentedour brokenness and then he did
something about it, right.
(40:21):
He hurt us and he became sostirred that he came in the
flesh and he experienced lamentintimately.
I mean, he was broken andbruised and crushed and rejected
and then he became lament forus.
And in doing this, god not onlypermits lament, but he gives us
(40:43):
its very language right.
He lives it out and I thinkthat if we think of it as a
sacrifice, you know or as anoffering.
Then you know it's like this iswhat I have, god, this is where
I'm at, this is all I have.
(41:04):
God, this is this is where I'mat, this is this is all I can
muster up, um.
And then he gathers that andputs it in a bottle and, you
know, shows us like I'm with you, always very compelling, um and
comforting.
And as someone who's sufferedfor many, many years physically,
(41:26):
which leads to other kinds ofsuffering, I find that very
personal and very tangible in away, because he's not some
distant.
You know force.
He is a father and a creatorand deeply loves us enough to
(41:53):
experience what we areexperiencing as well.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, I guess it kind of helps us to trust his like,
his character of, like we offerhim our, our, our pain, our
grief, because we know that wecan trust him.
Like over time in in the Biblewe can see how he's shown that
(42:20):
he can take care of us, like,like you said in Job, how God
took care of him even in spiteof us.
Like, like you said in joe, howgod took care of him even in
spite of his like suffering yeah, the theme of remembering is
very um prominent throughoutscripture.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Right, he's always telling his people to remember.
Yeah, I think that's becausewe're very forgetful.
We forget you know how fast andhow um forgiving and how loving
he actually is.
So many times, you know, we getcaught up in our bubble of of
(42:55):
the moment and so we're calledto remember and it's all written
down for us to remember.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, so Like we can remember the things that he has
done.
But how does that, how doeslimit help us?
You know, when we processinglike unanswered prayers, like
what kind of biblical frameworkcan it give us?
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know it's so hardbecause I never want to give
like a formulaic kind of answerto this question, because if
you're in the middle ofsuffering and grief, loss, and
you feel that your prayers havebeen unanswered thus far, or you
(43:42):
haven't received an answer youwere hoping for, I never want to
say well, follow these stepsand everything will be great,
right, right.
But I do think that you knowthe prayer of lament.
It anchors us to the cross.
It anchors us to the cross, andthe cross is the picture of
(44:04):
where suffering and hope meet.
It teaches us that the nightcan be long, but dawn is coming.
But I guess I would just say,like, don't be quiet, you know,
(44:28):
I think the enemy is going towant you to be quiet and to
retreat, like Adam and Eve didin the garden.
Um, and?
And God doesn't want you to dothat.
So you know, turn your face tohim.
You know, address God directly,like, name him, like cry out,
even through the tears oh Lord,my God, right, um, you're not
(44:53):
shouting into a void, uh, you'respeaking to the living God.
Um.
Psalm 63, one says oh God, youare my God.
331 says oh God, you are my God, earnestly, I seek you, um, and
you know, bring, like you knowI kind of said this already, but
(45:16):
bring your honest complaintlike, lay your sorrow, like for,
for you know, just bear allyour sorrow, like you know, name
the grief, the injustice, thefear, ask the hard questions.
God's not threatened by yourhonesty, he can take it.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Right.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
He knows already anyway, yes, yeah.
But yet he bids you to come andspeak freely, right, he's he,
he is um.
By doing that, you know you are, your relationship with him is
actually becoming deeper andmore intimate.
So, like Psalm 10, one a thirdof the Psalms are laments, and
(45:55):
so let's just go to the Psalms,right?
So if you don't even have yourown words, you can just pray the
words from the Psalms and usethem as your own until you have
your own.
But it says why, oh Lord, do youstand so far away?
Why do you hide yourself intime of trouble, like?
We know that God is notactually hiding from us in
(46:18):
trouble, but sometimes it feelsthat way and that's okay to say
that to him.
You know, like I feel likeyou're not around, I feel, you
know, like I've been left, Ifeel like I'm drowning, and and
you know you can, you can go toGod with those things, like
that's not Shameful, that's notwrong.
(46:43):
I think a lot of people maybethink it's wrong to say those
things to god, like um.
But men and women of the faith,you know we see it all through
scripture, that's how they.
They talk to god and and he'sokay with it.
He doesn't you strike them downfor doing that.
If anything, he responds inkindness and you know you also
(47:13):
can ask for justice.
You can ask for mercy, you canask for healing.
You can dare to expect that Godcan and will act according to
his promises.
We might not see it right awayand it might feel like he's not
answering those, but we're stilltold to ask.
(47:36):
You know, to come boldly intothe throne room and ask for
those things.
That's okay.
Um, I uh.
There was a time in my lifewhere I thought it was wrong to
request those things of god.
The scripture also tells usthat you have not because you
asked not, so there's no harm inasking for it, right, um,
(48:01):
that's okay now.
He might not answer the way youwould like, but you can still
ask him yeah, and he can.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
He can, he can help you with the, with the answer
that you you don't want, becausehe's still faithful.
Yeah, this is we're all.
We're just in a temporary place.
You know.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
This is, this is not our final destination, but right
and and a lot of times, youknow, suffering uh shows us what
we're clinging to tighter thanthan him, yeah, kind of shake up
the idols in our hearts and inour lives.
That can be really hardsometimes, especially when those
(48:47):
are when they're good things.
You know, I I struggle withsecondary infertility and I
always wanted a lot of kids.
I have three beautiful childrenand I love them so much.
But I was always, you know,desiring and praying for a very
large family and I it took Yearsprobably for me to let go of
(49:16):
that.
I don't trust that God knew bestand trust that.
Trust that um, that that hisplan was was better than my plan
, um, but it took time and andit took um, you know, kind of
relinquishing of that.
But for so long I had really,um, desired that and I was very
(49:39):
angry at God for not giving mewhat I was requesting and that's
not a bad thing to request,right, like we love children and
we love life and we love familyand it's all good things.
But I was coveting it and I wasdesiring it more than I was
desiring God's will for my life,and it took years for me to
(50:02):
recognize that and to let thatgo.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
And it was very.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
There was so much freedom in it when it finally
happened, but yet it was ajourney.
It was a journey of faith andlament and there was suffering
in there, because any woman thatdesires children, whether for
the first time or, like in mycase, with secondary infertility
(50:31):
, it's a very painful processand journey and, however, that
cannot be the desire for thatcannot be greater than him in
our life.
And so many times through lament.
Well, through suffering andthen by lament, we discover what
(50:55):
we're clinging to too tightly.
You know what?
We're placing our hope or ourjoy or happiness in other than
him, and that's okay.
It's hard to wrestle that outsometimes, but he is the
(51:17):
ultimate gift and he is theultimate source, and so anything
that we are choosing over him.
You know, um is an idol, andsuffering is, suffering through
it is one thing, but thenlearning to lament it helps us
(51:38):
become aware of that idol.
So with so if you're sufferingand you don't lament, it's hard
to recognize those things,because lament gives words to
what our heart condition is aswe do this, and so it's very
revealing and it's very helpful.
(52:01):
So I just would encourage youthat if you're suffering with
something like that, that you'renot discouraged but you look at
lament as a way of workingthrough the suffering.
We never want to stay there,and the Lord doesn't want us to
stay there either.
You know, suffering issanctifying, and it's it's not
(52:25):
sanctifying just forself-improvement, but ultimately
for the glory of god right,yeah but you know, the life of a
discipleship is not aboutgetting stronger, it's growing
more aware of our weakness andthe lord's strength.
Discipleship is dying to self,and when we bear the cross that
(52:49):
we are called to bear, it willkill us, but in death there's
life.
I read one time an uncrucifieddisciple is a contradiction of
terms that's hard to wrestlewith, that's a.
That's a tough pill to swallowsometimes, but it is.
(53:10):
You know, our hearts are eitheractive in bringing glory to God
or to ourselves, and so in thatsense, being the image of God
is like a verb, right, it's anaction.
It's not just who we are, butit's what we do.
Right, and people are mostsimilar to god when he is the
(53:33):
object of their affection, andsuffering helps kind of shake
that up right.
It helps us hold the things ofthis world with looser hands
right, with more open hands, andas we seek to follow christ in
(53:56):
our lives and to make him knownthe truth of his resurrection
and his romance, it becomes theuniversal yet to every broken
fact of our existence.
so you know, um, you have a lossin your life, yet christ is
(54:22):
risen.
When physical pain feels likeimpossible to bear, yet christ
is risen.
And even when the brokennessaround you seems to overwhelm
which if you watch the news,that's overwhelming as well yes,
so, yet christ is risen.
(54:43):
So jesus died, yet he wasraised.
And um, you know, the word ofgod has to trump all other words
and we have to believe it andknow it and then live it and um
of it, and um, it's, it's not,um, not easy you know, heft our
(55:10):
cross and bear our cross, butthe spirit labors with us.
We have a God, who, who entersinto it with us.
Um, and so if you don't feellike your prayers are being
answered or you're not gettingthe answers you want, maybe
(55:30):
focus on Christ and who he isand what he's promised.
But if we keep our eyes onChrist, you know, the cares of
this world they don't go away,but they definitely become dim.
Cares of this world they don'tgo away, but they definitely
become dim.
And uh, and he, he is what weput our faith in, not in our
(55:53):
desires or dreams or anythinglike that, because our greatest
need is to be right with Christ,right, John 3.30 tells us he
must become greater and greater,and I must become less and less
.
So in lament, we learn that Godis not merely the giver of good
gifts, he's the gift himself.
(56:15):
And so if that's all we have, wehave more than enough and we
have to really work on gettingto a place and trusting like
surrendering.
And we have to really work ongetting to a place and trusting
like surrendering that that istrue, because we want to find
that his presence and hiscovenantal relationship is
sweeter than any potentialabsence of pain.
(56:37):
And it's a hard place to get toand, again, it's not this kind
of arrival moment, it's thisconstant back and forth and two
steps forward, one step back,one step forward, two steps back
.
It's an ongoing journey, but ittrains us right, it trains us
(57:04):
and it forges our faith, if thatmakes sense yeah, it definitely
.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
I can see how limit um helps deepen our you know,
our relationship with god,especially when we're constantly
going to him asking for, likehis help, doing those, doing
those times of suffering anddifficulties that we're
experiencing.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
Go ahead, sir.
Speaker 1 (57:35):
No, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
Well, I was just thinking.
One of my pastors once said Godplus anything equals nothing,
and that one phrase.
I mean, it was years ago thathe said that, but that one
phrase has stuck with me.
So I think if we just like askourselves you know, what are we
(58:05):
clinging to as our hope?
Is it him, something else, oreven God plus something else?
Right, like in my case, it wasGod plus more kids, or God plus
health.
And, as my pastor said, godplus anything equals nothing.
It's what Adam and Eve did inthe garden it was God plus the
(58:28):
fruit, and I just think that'ssuch a powerful reminder that he
should be our all in all.
Speaker 1 (58:39):
Yeah, god plus anything equals nothing.
Yeah Well, to kind of wrap up,what encouragement can you offer
to believers who want toincorporate limit in their lives
to live faithfully for Christ?
Speaker 2 (58:59):
Yeah.
So what's so interesting is ourlives are kind of sprinkled
with reminders of the alreadyarriving but not yet in
completion.
And his kingdom is all aroundus.
These reminders, they allow usto seek light to our hearts when
(59:27):
it feels dark and hopeless.
Tolkien coined a phraseeucatastrophe.
I just love that he made upwords, love to make up words
like that, but he coined thisphrase.
Eucatastrophe, and in essence,a eucatastrophe is a massive
turn in fortune from a seeminglyunconquerable situation to an
(59:48):
unforeseen victory, usuallybrought by grace rather than
heroic effort.
So he said quote it is thesudden happy turn in a story
which pierces you with a joythat brings tears.
So for you know, practical,practical purposes.
The resurrection is the youcatastrophe, right it's.
(01:00:12):
you know in, in death there waslife yeah and, uh, you know,
maybe there's a sin or an idolor brokenness that's.
You know that that justhappened because we live in a in
a broken world in your life andyou think this is how it is.
But the resurrection saysthat's not how it's going to be
(01:00:38):
Right, there is hope andredemption and, even though it
feels painfully slow, it iscoming.
And so we lament in the spacebetween the suffering and the
restoration, because God alwayshas the final word.
And I find this veryencouraging because, again, this
(01:00:59):
is a process, this is a journey.
It takes time, so you're notjust going to go one, two, three
, four done, but eventually yourprivate lament with God.
It has potential to bringhealing to your soul and
strength to your heart.
And in this individual practice, lament is where our deep
(01:01:23):
sadness meets the world's deepwounds.
(01:01:46):
Miscarriage can minister muchbetter to other people who have
had miscarriages, versus if youhave never walked that you know
lonely road.
Or people who have experiencedthe loss of a spouse or a child
can walk alongside someone whois then doing it after them and
walk alongside someone who isthen doing it after them and
ministering and loving them.
Well, right, and so NicholasWolterstorff I hope I said his
(01:02:19):
name right he's a theologian.
He says it this way and Ithought it was so beautiful.
He says Jesus blesses those whomourn because they are aching
visionaries seeking genuinegoods that escape their grasp.
Who are the mourners?
They are those who have caughta glimpse of God's new day, who
act with all of their being forthe day's coming and who break
out into tears when confrontedwith its absence.
(01:02:40):
They are the ones who realizethat in God's realm of peace
there is no one blind, and whoache whenever they see someone
unseen.
They are the ones who realizethat in God's realm of peace
there is neither death nor tears, and who ache whenever they see
someone crying tears over death.
The mourners are achingvisionaries.
(01:03:02):
Mark 2, 17 says when Jesusheard it, he said to them those
who are well have no need of aphysician, but those who are
sick I came to call the right,not to call the righteous, but
sinners.
And so the church, especially.
We are to be for the sufferingand the broken, because that's
(01:03:24):
who christ was for, and tolament is so long for that
shalom of god right that we sawback in the garden and we see
again in the new creation.
But it's not just for ourselves, because that's too small for
god.
So big, yeah.
But to lament with and on behalfof others, I believe, is one of
(01:03:47):
the highest columns of thechurch.
The you are not alone is one ofthe most healing things you can
offer a hurting person, and assomeone who is hurt and
continues to hurt, I canpersonally attest to that.
Like you are not alone, right?
Personally attest to that.
Like you are not alone, right?
(01:04:07):
Um, it's the same reminder thatChrist gave us when he showed
his disciples his hands with thescars.
Like you are not alone.
And so I think you know, at thevery beginning of our
conversation I mentioned thatlament goes from me to God, to
others.
Right, yes, we are to lamentour hurt and our pain and the
(01:04:30):
evil that affects us directly,but that pain, through lament,
points us to God.
And when our eyes are on Christ, we are pointed to the dying
and broken world that he diedfor and loves so much.
And so the degree that we arewilling to enter into the
(01:04:52):
suffering of another person, Ithink, really reveals our love
for them.
And you know, I think of likethe cross.
It's, you know, I think of,like the cross.
(01:05:14):
It's a powerful love lament.
It asks us to sit in our griefand to sit with others and in
their pain and suffering, nomatter how uncomfortable is of
suffering.
Turned to mission is that wethink less of ourselves and each
individual who lives andsuffers, because everybody at
(01:05:35):
some point will suffer and theneventually dies for Christ.
That is a small seed planted inthe harvest field of potential
believers, because our testimony, no matter how small, is
fertile soil.
We don't have to do more thanwhat we're able to be faithful
with, but it's enough, becauseGod's grace fills in the rest
(01:05:59):
the the suffering of God on thecross.
It shows us that we can trustthat God has done and will do
everything he can for us.
He demonstrated that heconsidered this world, despite
(01:06:22):
all the evil and all of ourhiding, to be worth the greatest
cost to himself.
And I think that you know, whenthe curse is gone from the
whole creation and the earth isfilled with the glory of god and
(01:06:42):
all humanity will walk in hislight.
This is like such a gloriousclimax to the Bible's grand
metanarrative and this is thetriumph in the mission of God,
like this is our joy and this isour mission.
This is what we invite peopleinto when we suffer.
(01:07:06):
Well, this is what we invitepeople into when we suffer well
because we're the only ones, asChristians, who do not suffer in
vain.
This is how our pain is turnedinto praise, because no one else
(01:07:27):
.
You know, god promises that.
He doesn't promise that he'lltake away all suffering now, but
he does promise that Right, andso I think that that's a really
beautiful promise.
When we can look at thefulfilled Promise in the end of
the book, right, it's.
It's this beautiful picture ofpeace and of joy and of light.
(01:07:50):
And so you know, as much as wedon't want to suffer personally,
if we can get to a place, likeI said, with time, that our eyes
are turned upward and thenoutward, it gives great meaning
(01:08:15):
and purpose to what you might bewalking through right now.
And you know, until all thingsare made new, this is our
mission is to walk this brokenpath and to show other people
(01:08:36):
like through us, being able tosuffer well, to suffer with hope
, that we point others to himwho is making all things new.
And who does have an answer fortheir pain and who entered into
their pain, for them, you know,so that it can be redeemed into
something beautiful and lifegiving.
(01:08:57):
Um, I, I think that's.
It's a beautiful witness to theworld and I, just I think of
you know, philippians 3.14.
(01:09:17):
I press towards the goal to winthe supreme and heavenly prize
to which God in Christ Jesus, iscalling us upward, calling us
upward, so suffering wisely,born through lament, will yield
meaning.
But it will win little applausein the western culture.
Right, they don't understand it, especially when they're
(01:09:38):
grounded comfort.
But in the end, we know thatthis is not our circumstance and
not even the pain is going tohave the final word, because the
end result will prove worth thecost.
This is the gospel promise andI, just you know this is our
hope.
Your kingdom come Right.
Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I think that's very helpful.
Now I do have a couple ofpractical things that maybe
would be helpful.
Okay, that'll be good, this isgreat, but you know now what?
So, um, because I um, I'vetaught lament many times.
Um, because, as someone whosuffers, I've had to learn it
(01:10:23):
all you know, kind of on my own.
Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
But, um.
Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
So I have found that, um, the first thing we should
do is just establish a dailytradition of growing in the
knowledge of God, right?
We?
Um, we have to know hischaracter, we have to know the
story, um, pray the Psalms.
Know the story, pray the Psalms, write your own laments, sing
(01:10:54):
powerful songs and also weepwith those who weep.
I think you know communitylament is not something we do
and it needs to be part ofchurch culture because we never
want to force anybody into likepremature celebration.
Right, we don't want to skipgood friday right to sunday.
(01:11:17):
But if we want an acronym likehow to suffer, well, I have the
word trust, t-r-u-s-t.
So the first T would be eithertrain or teach yourself and your
family what a biblicalworldview says about life, about
suffering, about God, aboutevil, right?
So T, train or teach.
(01:11:40):
And then the R would be to readand study the stories of the
heroes of the Christian faith.
So I love, like Voice of theMartyrs, or you know, just all
the amazing men and women whohave counted the costs and found
(01:12:02):
it worth it to suffer.
Well, One of my favoritestories is of Perpetua.
Just a young girl, justincredible courage.
I, just I'm so inspired by herand reading those stories right.
This is part of thatremembering theme Reading
(01:12:23):
through scripture and readingthe stories of people who
suffered well and who ended well.
You know, race run well fillsour hearts with courage and
encouragement, and so I thinkthat that is a really important
practice to have.
(01:12:43):
So train and teach, read thestories of christian heroes.
Um the?
U would be understand thatthere is suffering in this life,
but keep your focus on eternity, uh s t-r-u-s.
So study god's truth andcharacter through his word and
(01:13:06):
hide it deep in your heart.
And I think this would be whereyou know the habit forming.
Liturgies are important, likeprayer.
You know wrestling in prayerand quoting scripture,
memorizing scripture, and thenthe final T would be testimony.
Live your life as a testimonyand a reflection, as an image
(01:13:29):
bearer.
So trust T-R-U-S-T.
Train and teach yourself, readand study, understand, study
God's word and live your life asa testimony.
So hopefully that's helpful.
I always find acronyms helpfultestimony, so hopefully that's
(01:13:51):
helpful.
I I always find acronymshelpful, um, but but yeah,
suffering is.
There's no one on this planetuntouched by suffering, so this
is something that we all arewrestling with and it needs to
be.
I'm so glad that you we aretalking about this today,
because it needs to be a regularconversation we're having in
the church.
Yeah, it's something we'reencouraging one another in as
(01:14:12):
well, so I'm so grateful thatwe're having this conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
Yeah, Thank you for having the conversation I think,
like you were talking about.
I love the practical tips thatyou gave, but I think the one
thing that kind of resonates islike lament.
It gives us hope.
You know, in this life, youknow, when you're talking about
(01:14:37):
the, we're in the yet part andit gives us something to like
look forward to.
In our suffering we're lookingto God and then it's not about
us, it's about us giving thatcomfort and hope to others yeah
yeah yeah, and it's a, it's just, you know, it's the gospel
(01:14:58):
lived out.
Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
It's.
It's the story of redemption andrecreation and of hope, and it
was for the hopes that beforehim or the joys that before him,
that Christ endured the cross,and so if our God did it for us,
we can do it for him and forothers as well.
And I think that that allows usto, like you said, have hope in
(01:15:27):
the middle of when it's hardand messy, and we are not alone,
and we are.
We just, we should be just sograteful that we have a God who
cares so much that he enters inand then he also gives us the
language of lament.
Very, very blessed to to havesuch a caring and personal God.
Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
Yeah Well, thank you, kelly, for sharing limit with
us, and even also like sharingyour personal stories and
struggles with us to make itcome alive a little bit more.
So thanks for being on the show.
Yeah, it's always great to talkto you so I hope you enjoyed
(01:16:38):
this episode with myconversation with kelly about
limit, as I was talking withKelly and learning more and more
about LEMIT I think you kind ofheard it.
Lemit is kind of it's notsynonymous, but LEMIT can give
(01:17:02):
us a sense of hope, like we'retaking our sorrows and our
struggles to a god that we know,because we read in his word
that he is faithful to hear ourcries, because we see it time
and time again in in scriptureshow he hears the cries of the
(01:17:24):
brokenhearted, those that are insorrow or in pain, and because
we know that, because we knowthis character of God, we have
the freedom to go to him at hisinvitation, to come before him
and express our sorrow.
But even in our sorrows andpain and grief, we have hope,
(01:17:50):
and I think that that's one ofthe things that most resonates
with me as we, as we talkedabout this practice, our prayer
of lament that we should beincorporating in our lives.
Lament is going to lead us intoa deeper relationship with God,
(01:18:13):
a deeper trust in him, and thenthat trust is going to help us
have hope in the future.
As we know, this world is notour final destination, it's just
a that, yet our we're passingthrough and Jesus is coming back
(01:18:36):
and we have hope that we willone day live with God forever
and he's going to make allthings new.
Well, thank you for listening tothis episode.
I hope it encouraged you.
If you know someone who isstruggling in a season of
(01:18:56):
suffering or grief or pain,please share this episode with
them.
Hopefully it will give themsome encouragement.
Well, until next time, rememberGod is always good and he's
always faithful.
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast, where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I am Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Follower of Christ.
(00:29):
Hey everybody, welcome toFaithfully Living, the Podcast,
where we strive to encourage youto live for Christ faithfully
by offering guidance on how tostudy the Bible, how to
understand the Bible better andhow to remain faithful to
historic Christianity in acontemporary society.
And today I'm excited to haveKelly Johnson on the podcast
again.
And today we're going to diveinto the topic of lament.
(00:51):
It's a topic that Christiansoften overlook.
You know, the world tells us tosuppress our sorrow or to rush
past our pain, but the Biblegives us a different perspective
.
We can see in Psalms andLamentations.
Even Jesus himself shows us andgives an example on how to to
(01:17):
lament and show us that it's nota lack of faith but it's an
expression of trust and hope inGod.
So what does it mean to lamentbiblically?
How can we bring our grief toGod in a way that strengthens
our faith?
So in this conversation I hadwith Kelly, we're going to kind
(01:38):
of go over like the power oflament and how it can help us
draw closer to God.
But before we start ourconversation, let me tell you a
little bit about Kelly if youhaven't heard her on the podcast
before.
She is a homeschool mom ofthree wonderful children.
For over a decade, kelly hashoned her writing skills and
(02:01):
passion for making the difficultthings in life more easily
understood in a variety ofapplications.
She is married to a verypatient and godly man.
For almost 20 years she hasbeen supported, has been
supported in all of herendeavors of learning, growing
and sharing that knowledge withwhoever God gives opportunity to
(02:23):
Learning to walk with the Lord.
While constantly plagued byundiagnosed medical issues,
kelly has shifted her injuriesto creating curriculum and Bible
studies for women and youth inher local community.
She teaches apologetics as wellas a variety of topics such as
(02:44):
covenants, lament and suffering,old Testament studies, the
meta-narrative of the Bible andmore.
In her local church, women'sBible studies and two youth
groups.
You can occasionally find heron YouTube at Apologetically
Female, and it also on.
(03:05):
You can read some of herwritings on her blog,
apologeticfemaleblogspotcom.
All right, let's dive intotoday's episode.
Hi Kelly, welcome back to theshow.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Hi, it's so good to be back.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I'm excited about this topic of lament.
I haven't delved in it a lot,but I'm excited to hear your
take on it and what you'velearned about it.
So let's kind of dive in withlike a definition what is
biblical lament, and how wouldit be different from like
(03:52):
complaining or despair?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, I think well.
So if you look up lament, likeI have the Oxford Dictionary
definition and according to thedictionary they say it's a
passionate expression of griefor sorrow.
And then if you go intogotquestionsorg a really helpful
(04:17):
website if you haven't beenthere before but they say to
lament is to express deep regret, grief or sorrow.
We can lament through words oractions, and my definition,
after many years of studying andlearning and reading about it
through scripture, is kind of alittle bit longer than that.
(04:41):
So my personal definition islament is a prayer of faith.
Despite our pain and fear.
Lament opens our eyes to thebrokenness in the world around
us and awakens our soul fromapathy.
It is a prayer in pain thatleads to trust, and so that's
kind of like my summary oflament.
(05:03):
But basically lament is just aform of prayer and I love how
Professor NT Wright says.
He says when we are indwelt bythe Holy Spirit, then somehow
God is praying within us for thepain around us.
So it's not just like this,maybe what we would perceive as
(05:28):
a passive thing.
You know, when Jesus taught hisdisciples to pray, he wasn't
just giving them something topass the time, but he was
inviting them and inviting us toparticipate in the arrival of
the kingdom by his spirit.
And lament is kind of how we dothat.
So it's basically like howChristians grieve biblically
(05:51):
because we're in this tension ofthe already but not yet, and we
have to live that out.
Somehow we have to wrestle withthe brokenness of the world and
the promises that we know wehave in Christ.
And so you know, when we lamentbiblically, when we pray this
(06:17):
form of prayer which we'll getinto and how we do that and what
it looks like, but we basicallywe name our pain, we question
boldly and we protestpassionately, but it's all
within the covenantalrelationship that we have with
God.
So really, only biblical lamentis something that Christians
(06:40):
can do because it's in thecontext of covenant, and so this
differs from complaining oreven despair, because complaint
really stems from pride.
We don't want to always admitthat, but when we complain we
presume that God somehow owes usan explanation.
(07:04):
Whatever's happening, itmurmurs against his character,
often behind his back, so it'snot usually to him but about him
, and most of the time it'srefusing to trust God's hand.
When his ways are hidden fromus, we can look at like the
(07:24):
Israelites in the wildernessright.
They're complaining about theirprovisions and, you know,
grumbling about the manna andthe quail, and then they're
longing for the chains of Egypt.
So that would be a good exampleof complaining.
So we want to like, compare andcontrast the two side by side.
(07:44):
So we want to compare andcontrast the two side by side.
If lament is expressed to God,then complaint is just expressed
about God, or lament points toGod and gives us a testimony,
(08:05):
but complaint hurts our witnessabout God.
Lament is going to demonstratefaith in God's goodness and
power and complaint demonstratesto the world our unbelief
(08:25):
outward and then upward.
So if we think of theprogression me, god, others
that's kind of the directionthat lament will take us.
Complaint always looks inwardor it's very self-focused.
Lament is a prayer, complaintis a gripe.
Lament is a releasing ofemotion, of mourning, that it's
heard beyond human ears, kind oflike the first point.
(08:50):
It expresses it to God, wherecomplaint and often turns into
outbursts of selfishness,usually to other humans, so it's
not typically to God.
Lament is always going to stemfrom a biblical worldview, where
complaint is from a secularworldview, and we I'll talk more
(09:11):
in detail as we kind of buildon the idea of how we lament
from that.
But then lament is also.
It's a journey that we go fromsorrow to joy or fear to trust.
It's a process.
But complaint kind of causes usto pit stop and stay stuck
(09:32):
where we are and lament isalways going to show our heart
condition and it creates arestoration and a renewal and
it's part of their redemptionand the redemptive story that
God's working out in history,where complaint is going to
(09:53):
ignore the heart condition andit's going to turn bitter and
destructive.
So I mean, and if you want totake it further, you know you
could have a complaint and thenthat can go into despair, which
is darker even than complaint,because it's just the Easter I
know this podcast will come outin a little bit, but we just
(10:28):
celebrated Easter and what abeautiful picture of hope that
we can cling to.
But despair kind of releasesthat hope, it like cuts that
cord of trust and it says thatyou know, I think of like Psalm
three, where it's there is nohelp for me in God, but without
(10:49):
adding the second part thatDavid adds that you, o Lord, are
a shield about me and so, likeI said, because of Christ's
resurrection we have eternalhope.
You know, psalm 30 reminds usthat weeping may stay for the
night, but rejoicing comes inthe morning.
And so lament kind of holdsthese two seemingly opposing
(11:12):
truths in tension.
It acknowledges that we havedeep suffering and evil, and it
doesn't minimize that, but itmaintains, kind of almost a
stubborn face, that God hears usand sees us and he will act,
even if it's not yet, or even ifit's not in the way we would
(11:33):
choose for him to act.
I think of, you know, psalm 42,11, and it says why are you
cast down, oh my soul?
Why are you in turmoil withinme?
Hope in God, for I shall againpraise him, my salvation and my
God.
And so lament is just thisbeautiful language that God
(11:59):
gives us to wrestle this out, torecognize the hurt and the
brokenness that everybody atsome point in their life will
experience, some more thanothers.
But yet there's this crux ofthis is really hard, this is
(12:28):
really hard, but christ is risen, you know, and so that's kind
of the difference betweenbiblical lament and complaining
and then, um, even despair, ifyou want to go even further than
that so I guess I can see how.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Why is important for us, like in our Christian faith,
to have that part of, like yousaid, it's a prayer that we give
to God and that how we'rewrestling with you know things
that we're dealing with in theworld today.
So how do we see this practicein scripture?
Speaker 2 (13:11):
in scripture.
Yeah, so it's really importantand it's hard to remember, but
it's really important that while, like, the circumstances of our
life have a narrative to them,there's, like there's this
biblical narrative that runsunderneath all of it and we need
to understand the story, orwhat some people call like the
meta-narrative, the entirepicture that scripture gives us
(13:32):
from Eden to the new Jerusalem,because it's his story and we're
woven into it.
And Chad Bird says it this wayhe's a very, very smart
theologian, but he saysrehearsing the truth of the
Bible reaches to your heart andit allows you to interpret pain
(13:54):
through the lens of God'scharacter.
And so lament is so importantfor the Christian faith because
it's the language of a peoplewho know the whole story, which
is the gospel story.
And I think that if we don'thave a language or we don't have
(14:16):
words to give to our experience, to give to our pain or our
hurt or our story, basically,then we're going to be stuck in
kind of this stoic silence.
And God, you know, even all theway back in the garden, god
(14:40):
calls to Adam and Eve in theirbrokenness you know where are
you?
He's asking that not because hedoesn't know where they are,
because he wants them to respond.
So it's this beautiful languagethat he gives us and he gives
(15:03):
his people, to those of us whowe know that this world is not
as it should be, and only he canset it right.
So it teaches us to kind ofsuffer towards God, not away
from him, and I think that's areally important point is that
suffering can do one of twothings it can draw you away from
him or it can press you deeperinto him, and so lament is a
(15:28):
language that helps us reachback out to him, and we see it
in Job.
You know Job's sitting in theashes.
He's demanding answers, buthe's refusing to curse God, even
though everyone around him,including his wife, is telling
him to do so.
We see it with David in thePsalms, while he's on the run
(15:54):
from Saul, and then later, whenhe's even grieving his own sin.
We see it in Jeremiah, who'sknown as the weeping prophet.
In Jeremiah, who's known as theweeping prophet, and he's
mourning the fall of Jerusalemand lamentations with very
brutal honesty but unyieldinghope, right.
(16:15):
We even see it in like Habakkuk, when he's wrestling with
confusion.
And yet he still ends his prayerwith, like this, this trembling
trust, and and we see it, youknow, with the barren women
throughout scripture.
We see it in church history.
(16:35):
You know the saints lamentingbecause they know and we know
that we're living in a story ofredemption that's not yet
complete.
We're living in a story ofredemption that's not yet
complete, and so we are standingbetween the promise and its
fulfillment and we're, you know,we're crying out kind of like
in the Psalms, like how long, ohLord?
(16:59):
Not because maybe wenecessarily doubt God, but
because we trust him enough thatwe know that he's not just left
us there, he's reaching out tous and we're reaching back.
But it's this tension ofalready but not yet.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, we can see it like you said, kind of like all
through scripture.
But we can see it, like yousaid, kind of like all through
scripture, but we can.
I know you quoted Psalms andLamentations.
I think sometimes we see that alittle bit more in those books.
So what can Psalms andLamentations teach us on how to
(17:43):
lament in ways that are honoringto God?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah, I find it very helpful.
So about I guess it's beeneight years now when I got
seriously ill and doctors stilldon't know what's wrong with me,
and I didn't have my own wordsto pray because I was just in so
(18:10):
much pain and I wasn't raisedwith lament as I think a lot of
people in the church are not andso I didn't even know what
lament was.
I'd never heard that word.
And so I didn't even know whatlament was.
(18:35):
I'd never heard that word.
But I just started reading thePsalms and Lamentations because
I deeply connected with them andthey resonated with me.
The words in them brought suchlike peace, was that?
Uh, you see, that lament is notlike this chaotic venting,
right, there's actually like astructure to how lament is, is
(18:55):
done, um and and.
As you read through the psalmsand even lamentations, and then
job, and then Job and all theseexamples that we have, we see
that there's always a God, isalways addressed directly.
So kind of, like I said in thebeginning, right, lament is to
(19:18):
God, not about God.
So we see, you know, oh God, myGod, right, even, even Christ,
(19:41):
it's a, it's a direct address to.
God himself, and then we seethis kind of honest complaint
brought to him, something to theeffect of why have you hidden
your face, or how long, o Lord?
And then oftentimes we'll see abold cry for help.
You know, arise, o Lord.
Or or David, you know, likelike, take out my enemies, like
he's.
He's very bold in his, in hisasking for help, his asking for
(20:11):
help.
But every lament is going toeventually maybe not right away,
and, as we personally learn tolament, this part will take time
but eventually there's going tobe a choice to trust.
And this is the yet in thelaments that we see.
So we can say, oh, oh God, youknow, my God, why have you
hidden your face?
Arise, oh Lord.
Or.
But yet I will rejoice in theGod of my salvation, or yet I
(20:36):
will trust you.
And so these prayers they're,you know, soaked with raw
emotion, but they're never agodless rage or faithless
despair.
They're always going to clingto God's character, his
steadfast love, faithfulness,justice, even when the
(21:22):
circumstances seem to justscream the opposite.
We can just go through these,what I call, I consider
liturgies.
So lately I've been kind ofdown a rabbit trail of liturgies
, not in the like Catholic sense, or, although they do have many
liturgies, but just more in thehabit forming that liturgies
(21:44):
create in our lives.
So lament is, you know, one ofthose things, and we have to do
it in spite of the circumstancesand in spite of how maybe we're
feeling, because it's still anact of faith to trust God and
(22:04):
His promises, especially whenwe're in the middle of the hurt
and it doesn't feel like he canhear us or he's near, but he
tells us that he is near and hetells us that he does hear.
And so you know, it's just,there's a kind of beautiful
(22:28):
symmetry and cadence andstructure to how we do this, and
Psalms of Lamentations kind ofoutlines it for us us.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I know, I know.
I always a lot of times like ifI'm going through something
hard.
I always turn to psalms as faras giving me, like you said,
that language to express ourlike emotions to the lord, to
let him know, even though healready, but just to voice them
to him and let him know how wefeel.
But, I have never I guess Inever thought about turning to
lamentation, so I'll have to dothat in my, in my reading of
(23:14):
Psalms too.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah Well, and interesting with lamentations is
it doesn't really end with aton of hope.
It ends sadly, uh, but but like, that's why the, the meta
narrative is so important,because scripture doesn't end
right at the end of lamentations, right, we have to keep going
um and uh.
(23:37):
And so, although the thestructure that we see for a
lament, there might be morespace between.
You know step three of askinghelp boldly to the choosing to
trust.
You know there can be time andspace between that and that's
(23:57):
okay because we serve a verypatient and loving God who, as
long as we are not pulling awayfrom him or growing bitter in
our silence, you know he willgive us that time to process.
Um, because there's deep hurt inthe world and people are
(24:18):
suffering greatly, um, and, andwe have a God that doesn't
minimize that right.
He doesn't say get over it it,or, you know, go through this
four step process and everythingwill be fine.
Right, like it's a journey andit's.
it's messy sometimes because itgives us structure and it gives
(24:49):
us um uh like a steadiness, kindof like god's character, right
it, let's um, this uh,predictable um pattern in our
hearts and our minds that we canjust go over and over and over
again, however many times weneed to.
It's not a one prayer and done,it's the constant.
You know speaking after him,learning his character, being
(25:13):
honest with him.
You know I think of, you know,covenantal relationship.
I've been married almost 20years and it's kind of the same
right Other than you know we'reboth sinners and you know God's
perfect.
But this kind of coming backtogether, coming back together,
(25:33):
coming back together working itout, you know allowing the Lord
to work on your heart.
As more time passes, heart, asmore time passes, as you learn
who he is, more and more abouthis love and his plan and his
purpose, not just for you butfor all creation.
There's no real arrival right.
(25:57):
It's a continual sanctificationand process of a relationship
and that's what he desires fromus anyways.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
So you know, when Jesus was on the earth, you know
he's fully God and fully man.
He taught us a lot of thingsand he modeled a lot of things.
So did Jesus model like lamentin his earthly ministry, maybe
like in the garden of Gethsemaneor on the cross?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
yeah, yeah, he was a great um image of lament, um,
you know, in in the garden he Imean, he sweat blood and he
prayed like if there's any otherway, lord, you know, you know.
Please let this pass Um, andthis wasn't rebellion, this
(26:48):
wasn't um like he had somehow adifferent will than God's.
But um, but this is just asurrender, through the agony, of
what he had to walk through, um, which is what we're called to
as well.
And you know, on the cross hecries out the lament of Psalm
(27:09):
22,.
You know, my God, my God, whyhave you forsaken me?
And I think about you, knowlike, in his final breath, jesus
bore the full weight of ourabandonment.
And yet even then, right thatword yet again, you'll see it
(27:30):
come up all the time.
Yet even then he cried out toGod, not away from God.
And you know, if we ever wonderhow we should be walking as
humans through this broken world, he's our image, he's our
(27:54):
picture of how to do it and howto do it well.
And so even Christ laments.
You know he weeps when hisfriend Lazarus dies.
He knew he was going to raisehim from the dead, and yet he
(28:16):
still grieves the brokenness ofthe world.
And so I just love that Jesusteaches us that, like lament and
emotion and hurt is not a signof weak faith, but it is a sign
of faith that is willing tobleed.
And you know, we see that backin the garden as he wrestled
through the agony.
(28:36):
So it's.
I find Christ's lamentsincredibly powerful because, I
mean, he's fully God and fullyman and he leaves perfection and
(28:58):
he comes down into the pain andthe brokenness.
You know, he's the man ofsorrows, christ himself, like um
.
We do not have a God whodoesn't know what it's like Um,
and he shows us how to do thisUm.
But even on the cross, hereaches out to God with his
(29:22):
final breath.
He doesn't pull away from him,and I think that's something we
need to really take note of andtry to model as best we can in
our suffering as well.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, and I know a lot of times, you know, as
Christians we struggle with, youknow, expressing our sorrow and
grief to God, and why do youthink that that's something that
we often overlook, likelamenting?
Why don't we do it more asbelievers today?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah, I think there's a couple.
It takes effort and repetition.
You know, prayer is kind oflike a muscle, right, and hope
springs from truth rehearsed, soit's kind of like that liturgy
right.
The things we do over and overagain, those habit forming
(30:21):
practices that form and shapenot only our life but our
worldview and and ourunderstanding of God's character
as well.
And so, you know, the, thepractice of lament, the kind
that's like biblical and honest,it's not natural for us because
(30:43):
it's prayer.
It's not natural for us becauseit's prayer and and our prayer
tends to be pretty shallow.
Um, if we, if we're going to behonest, right, a lot of times
it's, you know, bless my kids,bless my husband, bless my day
you know, thank you for yoursalvation, um, but I, you know,
(31:03):
I think of jacob wrestling withthe angel and it was like all
night wrestling and and even inthat, you know, he was like no,
I'm not letting go, and, um, andI think that that is I always
tell my students like OldTestament, like physical Old
(31:28):
Testament pictures typicallypoint to a New Testament,
spiritual truth, and so when wesee like this wrestling in the
Old Testament, we should wonderhow then that translates to our
life?
Right, how then that translatesto our life?
Right, like in the spirit.
And we don't wrestle very wellspiritually, because it takes
(31:49):
time, it takes effort and ittakes practice.
Yeah, and you know we have to,we have to ask ourselves like
are we okay, or are we going toaccept the invitation to
suffering?
(32:10):
And as Christians, especiallywhen comfort is such an idol in
our hearts and our lives, wedon't, you know, we don't want
to do that.
I don't have this quote infront of me, but CS Lewis said
it kind of this way, hopefullyI'll get it right.
He said we don't necessarilydoubt God's best for our lives,
(32:35):
but we do wonder how painfulGod's best will be for us, us,
and I think that that is reallykind of the crux of the issue
with us, especially sincecomfort is such an idol for us.
I think the second thing is that, you know, kind of building on
(32:56):
that, is that modernChristianity, western modern
Christianity we love this kindof triumphalism, right, like we
love to rush to Easter Sundaybut we kind of skip over a good
Friday Right, or we think faithmeans smiling through the
suffering, or we try to bottleup our grief and pretend at
(33:19):
strength.
Strength, we don't.
You know, in our churches wedon't sing songs of lament
anymore.
A lot of times from the pulpitwe get a lot of sermons on
victory without acknowledgingthe valleys.
Yeah, and our culture, we prizecontrol and lament is dangerous
(33:46):
in that it admits that we'repowerless to fix ourselves.
Yeah, it acknowledges that wecannot do this and we're not
doing it, and so, essentially,lament doesn't sell well, you
know it's it doesn't.
It doesn't sell well, itdoesn't look fun.
(34:25):
It's something that we have tobe comfortable being
uncomfortable and that takespractice and it takes a cultural
shift in the church to lamenttogether, to lament corporately,
(34:46):
to lament individually, andit's hard, you know, people
don't want to admit that thingsin their life are hard.
They don't want people to seetheir weaknesses.
And it's so interesting becauseScripture tells us that when
we're weak, christ is madestrong, like, like he shows
(35:08):
himself stronger in ourweaknesses and so, um, but it
just it doesn't look very good,right, I think.
Finally, you know, it takesfaith to lament and we it seeks
(35:30):
understanding, but it's itunderstands that we are not
dependent on that understanding.
You know, job cried out forunderstanding and God responded
with where were you when Icreated all things right?
Like he points to his majestyand his glory and his
understanding.
And God responded with wherewere you when I created all
things right?
Like he points to to hismajesty and his glory and his?
You know, it don't never reallyget an answer, yeah, and that's
(36:01):
that's really hard for us, butwe do know that it leads us back
to a place of hope.
You know we are longing for theshalom of God, which was
vandalized back in Genesis 3.
Shalom, that peace, and shalomis kind of a bigger word than
just peace, as most Hebrew wordsare, but it encompasses this
kind of wholeness that we lostin the garden.
(36:23):
This kind of wholeness that welost in the garden but that's
being renewed.
We know that God is working outthe renewal and restoration of
all of that, and we see evennature lamenting or groaning
(36:44):
with hopeful expectation,because we're all looking
forward to that Revelation 21promise of he will wipe away
every tear and there will nolonger be death or sorrow, or
anguish, crying or pain.
But we're not quite there yet,and so in the meantime, it takes
practice, it takes work, ittakes faith and it takes
(37:05):
community to work through lament.
It's just something, it's askill we have to get better at.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
So what encouragement can you offer?
You know us when we're you, youknow we want to have that
control, even though you knowbasically we're not.
But we, we have an idea that weare.
So what encouragement can youlike give us that sometimes we
see it may be a lack of faith orwe can't do things ourselves
(37:39):
yeah, um, I think that's such animportant question.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I would say this God invites your lament.
He, excuse me, he goes to anorphanage in Russia.
As they were in the process ofpursuing adoption and he said
(38:07):
the silence from the nursery wasalmost eerie.
The babies in the cribs theynever cried.
Not because they never neededanything, but because they had
learned that no one cared enoughto answer their cries Makes me
kind of emotional thinking aboutthat.
So children who are confidentof the love of a caregiver cry.
(38:32):
So for the Christian, ourlament when taken to our
heavenly creator, our father,this is proof of our
relationship with god.
Um, and I just think thatpaints such a powerful picture
(38:54):
um, god invites your lament.
He wants us to cry out to himquite the opposite of what adam
did in the garden.
Right, where are you?
He hid himself Because you know, god's throne of grace is not
reserved for the victorious,it's for the weary, it's for the
(39:14):
brokenhearted, it's for thedoubting.
To cry before God is not tohave a lack of faith, but it's
to live out your faith.
Psalm 56.8 tells us that theLord keeps every tear in a
bottle, so he doesn't despiseour sorrows, he gathers them up.
(39:40):
Gathers them up.
I think that's a verycompelling picture of the care
that God gives our pain.
You know that he's capturingthem all in a bottle.
So maybe, instead of viewingcrying out or bringing your pain
(40:00):
before God as a lack of faith,maybe view it as an offering,
you know, a sacrifice ofbrokenness that God sees as
precious, because, unlike thebabies in the cribs, we have a
father who cares.
You know, god himself lamentedour brokenness and then he did
something about it, right.
(40:21):
He hurt us and he became sostirred that he came in the
flesh and he experienced lamentintimately.
I mean, he was broken andbruised and crushed and rejected
and then he became lament forus.
And in doing this, god not onlypermits lament, but he gives us
(40:43):
its very language right.
He lives it out and I thinkthat if we think of it as a
sacrifice, you know or as anoffering.
Then you know it's like this iswhat I have, god, this is where
I'm at, this is all I have.
(41:04):
God, this is this is where I'mat, this is this is all I can
muster up, um.
And then he gathers that andputs it in a bottle and, you
know, shows us like I'm with you, always very compelling, um and
comforting.
And as someone who's sufferedfor many, many years physically,
(41:26):
which leads to other kinds ofsuffering, I find that very
personal and very tangible in away, because he's not some
distant.
You know force.
He is a father and a creatorand deeply loves us enough to
(41:53):
experience what we areexperiencing as well.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, I guess it kind of helps us to trust his like,
his character of, like we offerhim our, our, our pain, our
grief, because we know that wecan trust him.
Like over time in in the Biblewe can see how he's shown that
(42:20):
he can take care of us, like,like you said in Job, how God
took care of him even in spiteof us.
Like, like you said in joe, howgod took care of him even in
spite of his like suffering yeah, the theme of remembering is
very um prominent throughoutscripture.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Right, he's always telling his people to remember.
Yeah, I think that's becausewe're very forgetful.
We forget you know how fast andhow um forgiving and how loving
he actually is.
So many times, you know, we getcaught up in our bubble of of
(42:55):
the moment and so we're calledto remember and it's all written
down for us to remember.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, so Like we can remember the things that he has
done.
But how does that, how doeslimit help us?
You know, when we processinglike unanswered prayers, like
what kind of biblical frameworkcan it give us?
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know it's so hardbecause I never want to give
like a formulaic kind of answerto this question, because if
you're in the middle ofsuffering and grief, loss, and
you feel that your prayers havebeen unanswered thus far, or you
(43:42):
haven't received an answer youwere hoping for, I never want to
say well, follow these stepsand everything will be great,
right, right.
But I do think that you knowthe prayer of lament.
It anchors us to the cross.
It anchors us to the cross, andthe cross is the picture of
(44:04):
where suffering and hope meet.
It teaches us that the nightcan be long, but dawn is coming.
But I guess I would just say,like, don't be quiet, you know,
(44:28):
I think the enemy is going towant you to be quiet and to
retreat, like Adam and Eve didin the garden.
Um, and?
And God doesn't want you to dothat.
So you know, turn your face tohim.
You know, address God directly,like, name him, like cry out,
even through the tears oh Lord,my God, right, um, you're not
(44:53):
shouting into a void, uh, you'respeaking to the living God.
Um.
Psalm 63, one says oh God, youare my God.
331 says oh God, you are my God, earnestly, I seek you, um, and
you know, bring, like you knowI kind of said this already, but
(45:16):
bring your honest complaintlike, lay your sorrow, like for,
for you know, just bear allyour sorrow, like you know, name
the grief, the injustice, thefear, ask the hard questions.
God's not threatened by yourhonesty, he can take it.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Right.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
He knows already anyway, yes, yeah.
But yet he bids you to come andspeak freely, right, he's he,
he is um.
By doing that, you know you are, your relationship with him is
actually becoming deeper andmore intimate.
So, like Psalm 10, one a thirdof the Psalms are laments, and
(45:55):
so let's just go to the Psalms,right?
So if you don't even have yourown words, you can just pray the
words from the Psalms and usethem as your own until you have
your own.
But it says why, oh Lord, do youstand so far away?
Why do you hide yourself intime of trouble, like?
We know that God is notactually hiding from us in
(46:18):
trouble, but sometimes it feelsthat way and that's okay to say
that to him.
You know, like I feel likeyou're not around, I feel, you
know, like I've been left, Ifeel like I'm drowning, and and
you know you can, you can go toGod with those things, like
that's not Shameful, that's notwrong.
(46:43):
I think a lot of people maybethink it's wrong to say those
things to god, like um.
But men and women of the faith,you know we see it all through
scripture, that's how they.
They talk to god and and he'sokay with it.
He doesn't you strike them downfor doing that.
If anything, he responds inkindness and you know you also
(47:13):
can ask for justice.
You can ask for mercy, you canask for healing.
You can dare to expect that Godcan and will act according to
his promises.
We might not see it right awayand it might feel like he's not
answering those, but we're stilltold to ask.
(47:36):
You know, to come boldly intothe throne room and ask for
those things.
That's okay.
Um, I uh.
There was a time in my lifewhere I thought it was wrong to
request those things of god.
The scripture also tells usthat you have not because you
asked not, so there's no harm inasking for it, right, um,
(48:01):
that's okay now.
He might not answer the way youwould like, but you can still
ask him yeah, and he can.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
He can, he can help you with the, with the answer
that you you don't want, becausehe's still faithful.
Yeah, this is we're all.
We're just in a temporary place.
You know.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
This is, this is not our final destination, but right
and and a lot of times, youknow, suffering uh shows us what
we're clinging to tighter thanthan him, yeah, kind of shake up
the idols in our hearts and inour lives.
That can be really hardsometimes, especially when those
(48:47):
are when they're good things.
You know, I I struggle withsecondary infertility and I
always wanted a lot of kids.
I have three beautiful childrenand I love them so much.
But I was always, you know,desiring and praying for a very
large family and I it took Yearsprobably for me to let go of
(49:16):
that.
I don't trust that God knew bestand trust that.
Trust that um, that that hisplan was was better than my plan
, um, but it took time and andit took um, you know, kind of
relinquishing of that.
But for so long I had really,um, desired that and I was very
(49:39):
angry at God for not giving mewhat I was requesting and that's
not a bad thing to request,right, like we love children and
we love life and we love familyand it's all good things.
But I was coveting it and I wasdesiring it more than I was
desiring God's will for my life,and it took years for me to
(50:02):
recognize that and to let thatgo.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
And it was very.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
There was so much freedom in it when it finally
happened, but yet it was ajourney.
It was a journey of faith andlament and there was suffering
in there, because any woman thatdesires children, whether for
the first time or, like in mycase, with secondary infertility
(50:31):
, it's a very painful processand journey and, however, that
cannot be the desire for thatcannot be greater than him in
our life.
And so many times through lament.
Well, through suffering andthen by lament, we discover what
(50:55):
we're clinging to too tightly.
You know what?
We're placing our hope or ourjoy or happiness in other than
him, and that's okay.
It's hard to wrestle that outsometimes, but he is the
(51:17):
ultimate gift and he is theultimate source, and so anything
that we are choosing over him.
You know, um is an idol, andsuffering is, suffering through
it is one thing, but thenlearning to lament it helps us
(51:38):
become aware of that idol.
So with so if you're sufferingand you don't lament, it's hard
to recognize those things,because lament gives words to
what our heart condition is aswe do this, and so it's very
revealing and it's very helpful.
(52:01):
So I just would encourage youthat if you're suffering with
something like that, that you'renot discouraged but you look at
lament as a way of workingthrough the suffering.
We never want to stay there,and the Lord doesn't want us to
stay there either.
You know, suffering issanctifying, and it's it's not
(52:25):
sanctifying just forself-improvement, but ultimately
for the glory of god right,yeah but you know, the life of a
discipleship is not aboutgetting stronger, it's growing
more aware of our weakness andthe lord's strength.
Discipleship is dying to self,and when we bear the cross that
(52:49):
we are called to bear, it willkill us, but in death there's
life.
I read one time an uncrucifieddisciple is a contradiction of
terms that's hard to wrestlewith, that's a.
That's a tough pill to swallowsometimes, but it is.
(53:10):
You know, our hearts are eitheractive in bringing glory to God
or to ourselves, and so in thatsense, being the image of God
is like a verb, right, it's anaction.
It's not just who we are, butit's what we do.
Right, and people are mostsimilar to god when he is the
(53:33):
object of their affection, andsuffering helps kind of shake
that up right.
It helps us hold the things ofthis world with looser hands
right, with more open hands, andas we seek to follow christ in
(53:56):
our lives and to make him knownthe truth of his resurrection
and his romance, it becomes theuniversal yet to every broken
fact of our existence.
so you know, um, you have a lossin your life, yet christ is
(54:22):
risen.
When physical pain feels likeimpossible to bear, yet christ
is risen.
And even when the brokennessaround you seems to overwhelm
which if you watch the news,that's overwhelming as well yes,
so, yet christ is risen.
(54:43):
So jesus died, yet he wasraised.
And um, you know, the word ofgod has to trump all other words
and we have to believe it andknow it and then live it and um
of it, and um, it's, it's not,um, not easy you know, heft our
(55:10):
cross and bear our cross, butthe spirit labors with us.
We have a God, who, who entersinto it with us.
Um, and so if you don't feellike your prayers are being
answered or you're not gettingthe answers you want, maybe
(55:30):
focus on Christ and who he isand what he's promised.
But if we keep our eyes onChrist, you know, the cares of
this world they don't go away,but they definitely become dim.
Cares of this world they don'tgo away, but they definitely
become dim.
And uh, and he, he is what weput our faith in, not in our
(55:53):
desires or dreams or anythinglike that, because our greatest
need is to be right with Christ,right, John 3.30 tells us he
must become greater and greater,and I must become less and less
.
So in lament, we learn that Godis not merely the giver of good
gifts, he's the gift himself.
(56:15):
And so if that's all we have, wehave more than enough and we
have to really work on gettingto a place and trusting like
surrendering.
And we have to really work ongetting to a place and trusting
like surrendering that that istrue, because we want to find
that his presence and hiscovenantal relationship is
sweeter than any potentialabsence of pain.
(56:37):
And it's a hard place to get toand, again, it's not this kind
of arrival moment, it's thisconstant back and forth and two
steps forward, one step back,one step forward, two steps back
.
It's an ongoing journey, but ittrains us right, it trains us
(57:04):
and it forges our faith, if thatmakes sense yeah, it definitely
.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
I can see how limit um helps deepen our you know,
our relationship with god,especially when we're constantly
going to him asking for, likehis help, doing those, doing
those times of suffering anddifficulties that we're
experiencing.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
Go ahead, sir.
Speaker 1 (57:35):
No, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
Well, I was just thinking.
One of my pastors once said Godplus anything equals nothing,
and that one phrase.
I mean, it was years ago thathe said that, but that one
phrase has stuck with me.
So I think if we just like askourselves you know, what are we
(58:05):
clinging to as our hope?
Is it him, something else, oreven God plus something else?
Right, like in my case, it wasGod plus more kids, or God plus
health.
And, as my pastor said, godplus anything equals nothing.
It's what Adam and Eve did inthe garden it was God plus the
(58:28):
fruit, and I just think that'ssuch a powerful reminder that he
should be our all in all.
Speaker 1 (58:39):
Yeah, god plus anything equals nothing.
Yeah Well, to kind of wrap up,what encouragement can you offer
to believers who want toincorporate limit in their lives
to live faithfully for Christ?
Speaker 2 (58:59):
Yeah.
So what's so interesting is ourlives are kind of sprinkled
with reminders of the alreadyarriving but not yet in
completion.
And his kingdom is all aroundus.
These reminders, they allow usto seek light to our hearts when
(59:27):
it feels dark and hopeless.
Tolkien coined a phraseeucatastrophe.
I just love that he made upwords, love to make up words
like that, but he coined thisphrase.
Eucatastrophe, and in essence,a eucatastrophe is a massive
turn in fortune from a seeminglyunconquerable situation to an
(59:48):
unforeseen victory, usuallybrought by grace rather than
heroic effort.
So he said quote it is thesudden happy turn in a story
which pierces you with a joythat brings tears.
So for you know, practical,practical purposes.
The resurrection is the youcatastrophe, right it's.
(01:00:12):
you know in, in death there waslife yeah and, uh, you know,
maybe there's a sin or an idolor brokenness that's.
You know that that justhappened because we live in a in
a broken world in your life andyou think this is how it is.
But the resurrection saysthat's not how it's going to be
(01:00:38):
Right, there is hope andredemption and, even though it
feels painfully slow, it iscoming.
And so we lament in the spacebetween the suffering and the
restoration, because God alwayshas the final word.
And I find this veryencouraging because, again, this
(01:00:59):
is a process, this is a journey.
It takes time, so you're notjust going to go one, two, three
, four done, but eventually yourprivate lament with God.
It has potential to bringhealing to your soul and
strength to your heart.
And in this individual practice, lament is where our deep
(01:01:23):
sadness meets the world's deepwounds.
(01:01:46):
Miscarriage can minister muchbetter to other people who have
had miscarriages, versus if youhave never walked that you know
lonely road.
Or people who have experiencedthe loss of a spouse or a child
can walk alongside someone whois then doing it after them and
walk alongside someone who isthen doing it after them and
ministering and loving them.
Well, right, and so NicholasWolterstorff I hope I said his
(01:02:19):
name right he's a theologian.
He says it this way and Ithought it was so beautiful.
He says Jesus blesses those whomourn because they are aching
visionaries seeking genuinegoods that escape their grasp.
Who are the mourners?
They are those who have caughta glimpse of God's new day, who
act with all of their being forthe day's coming and who break
out into tears when confrontedwith its absence.
(01:02:40):
They are the ones who realizethat in God's realm of peace
there is no one blind, and whoache whenever they see someone
unseen.
They are the ones who realizethat in God's realm of peace
there is neither death nor tears, and who ache whenever they see
someone crying tears over death.
The mourners are achingvisionaries.
(01:03:02):
Mark 2, 17 says when Jesusheard it, he said to them those
who are well have no need of aphysician, but those who are
sick I came to call the right,not to call the righteous, but
sinners.
And so the church, especially.
We are to be for the sufferingand the broken, because that's
(01:03:24):
who christ was for, and tolament is so long for that
shalom of god right that we sawback in the garden and we see
again in the new creation.
But it's not just for ourselves, because that's too small for
god.
So big, yeah.
But to lament with and on behalfof others, I believe, is one of
(01:03:47):
the highest columns of thechurch.
The you are not alone is one ofthe most healing things you can
offer a hurting person, and assomeone who is hurt and
continues to hurt, I canpersonally attest to that.
Like you are not alone, right?
Personally attest to that.
Like you are not alone, right?
(01:04:07):
Um, it's the same reminder thatChrist gave us when he showed
his disciples his hands with thescars.
Like you are not alone.
And so I think you know, at thevery beginning of our
conversation I mentioned thatlament goes from me to God, to
others.
Right, yes, we are to lamentour hurt and our pain and the
(01:04:30):
evil that affects us directly,but that pain, through lament,
points us to God.
And when our eyes are on Christ, we are pointed to the dying
and broken world that he diedfor and loves so much.
And so the degree that we arewilling to enter into the
(01:04:52):
suffering of another person, Ithink, really reveals our love
for them.
And you know, I think of likethe cross.
It's, you know, I think of,like the cross.
(01:05:14):
It's a powerful love lament.
It asks us to sit in our griefand to sit with others and in
their pain and suffering, nomatter how uncomfortable is of
suffering.
Turned to mission is that wethink less of ourselves and each
individual who lives andsuffers, because everybody at
(01:05:35):
some point will suffer and theneventually dies for Christ.
That is a small seed planted inthe harvest field of potential
believers, because our testimony, no matter how small, is
fertile soil.
We don't have to do more thanwhat we're able to be faithful
with, but it's enough, becauseGod's grace fills in the rest
(01:05:59):
the the suffering of God on thecross.
It shows us that we can trustthat God has done and will do
everything he can for us.
He demonstrated that heconsidered this world, despite
(01:06:22):
all the evil and all of ourhiding, to be worth the greatest
cost to himself.
And I think that you know, whenthe curse is gone from the
whole creation and the earth isfilled with the glory of god and
(01:06:42):
all humanity will walk in hislight.
This is like such a gloriousclimax to the Bible's grand
metanarrative and this is thetriumph in the mission of God,
like this is our joy and this isour mission.
This is what we invite peopleinto when we suffer.
(01:07:06):
Well, this is what we invitepeople into when we suffer well
because we're the only ones, asChristians, who do not suffer in
vain.
This is how our pain is turnedinto praise, because no one else
(01:07:27):
.
You know, god promises that.
He doesn't promise that he'lltake away all suffering now, but
he does promise that Right, andso I think that that's a really
beautiful promise.
When we can look at thefulfilled Promise in the end of
the book, right, it's.
It's this beautiful picture ofpeace and of joy and of light.
(01:07:50):
And so you know, as much as wedon't want to suffer personally,
if we can get to a place, likeI said, with time, that our eyes
are turned upward and thenoutward, it gives great meaning
(01:08:15):
and purpose to what you might bewalking through right now.
And you know, until all thingsare made new, this is our
mission is to walk this brokenpath and to show other people
(01:08:36):
like through us, being able tosuffer well, to suffer with hope
, that we point others to himwho is making all things new.
And who does have an answer fortheir pain and who entered into
their pain, for them, you know,so that it can be redeemed into
something beautiful and lifegiving.
(01:08:57):
Um, I, I think that's.
It's a beautiful witness to theworld and I, just I think of
you know, philippians 3.14.
(01:09:17):
I press towards the goal to winthe supreme and heavenly prize
to which God in Christ Jesus, iscalling us upward, calling us
upward, so suffering wisely,born through lament, will yield
meaning.
But it will win little applausein the western culture.
Right, they don't understand it, especially when they're
(01:09:38):
grounded comfort.
But in the end, we know thatthis is not our circumstance and
not even the pain is going tohave the final word, because the
end result will prove worth thecost.
This is the gospel promise andI, just you know this is our
hope.
Your kingdom come Right.
Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I think that's very helpful.
Now I do have a couple ofpractical things that maybe
would be helpful.
Okay, that'll be good, this isgreat, but you know now what?
So, um, because I um, I'vetaught lament many times.
Um, because, as someone whosuffers, I've had to learn it
(01:10:23):
all you know, kind of on my own.
Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
But, um.
Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
So I have found that, um, the first thing we should
do is just establish a dailytradition of growing in the
knowledge of God, right?
We?
Um, we have to know hischaracter, we have to know the
story, um, pray the Psalms.
Know the story, pray the Psalms, write your own laments, sing
(01:10:54):
powerful songs and also weepwith those who weep.
I think you know communitylament is not something we do
and it needs to be part ofchurch culture because we never
want to force anybody into likepremature celebration.
Right, we don't want to skipgood friday right to sunday.
(01:11:17):
But if we want an acronym likehow to suffer, well, I have the
word trust, t-r-u-s-t.
So the first T would be eithertrain or teach yourself and your
family what a biblicalworldview says about life, about
suffering, about God, aboutevil, right?
So T, train or teach.
(01:11:40):
And then the R would be to readand study the stories of the
heroes of the Christian faith.
So I love, like Voice of theMartyrs, or you know, just all
the amazing men and women whohave counted the costs and found
(01:12:02):
it worth it to suffer.
Well, One of my favoritestories is of Perpetua.
Just a young girl, justincredible courage.
I, just I'm so inspired by herand reading those stories right.
This is part of thatremembering theme Reading
(01:12:23):
through scripture and readingthe stories of people who
suffered well and who ended well.
You know, race run well fillsour hearts with courage and
encouragement, and so I thinkthat that is a really important
practice to have.
(01:12:43):
So train and teach, read thestories of christian heroes.
Um the?
U would be understand thatthere is suffering in this life,
but keep your focus on eternity, uh s t-r-u-s.
So study god's truth andcharacter through his word and
(01:13:06):
hide it deep in your heart.
And I think this would be whereyou know the habit forming.
Liturgies are important, likeprayer.
You know wrestling in prayerand quoting scripture,
memorizing scripture, and thenthe final T would be testimony.
Live your life as a testimonyand a reflection, as an image
(01:13:29):
bearer.
So trust T-R-U-S-T.
Train and teach yourself, readand study, understand, study
God's word and live your life asa testimony.
So hopefully that's helpful.
I always find acronyms helpfultestimony, so hopefully that's
(01:13:51):
helpful.
I I always find acronymshelpful, um, but but yeah,
suffering is.
There's no one on this planetuntouched by suffering, so this
is something that we all arewrestling with and it needs to
be.
I'm so glad that you we aretalking about this today,
because it needs to be a regularconversation we're having in
the church.
Yeah, it's something we'reencouraging one another in as
(01:14:12):
well, so I'm so grateful thatwe're having this conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
Yeah, Thank you for having the conversation I think,
like you were talking about.
I love the practical tips thatyou gave, but I think the one
thing that kind of resonates islike lament.
It gives us hope.
You know, in this life, youknow, when you're talking about
(01:14:37):
the, we're in the yet part andit gives us something to like
look forward to.
In our suffering we're lookingto God and then it's not about
us, it's about us giving thatcomfort and hope to others yeah
yeah yeah, and it's a, it's just, you know, it's the gospel
(01:14:58):
lived out.
Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
It's.
It's the story of redemption andrecreation and of hope, and it
was for the hopes that beforehim or the joys that before him,
that Christ endured the cross,and so if our God did it for us,
we can do it for him and forothers as well.
And I think that that allows usto, like you said, have hope in
(01:15:27):
the middle of when it's hardand messy, and we are not alone,
and we are.
We just, we should be just sograteful that we have a God who
cares so much that he enters inand then he also gives us the
language of lament.
Very, very blessed to to havesuch a caring and personal God.
Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
Yeah Well, thank you, kelly, for sharing limit with
us, and even also like sharingyour personal stories and
struggles with us to make itcome alive a little bit more.
So thanks for being on the show.
Yeah, it's always great to talkto you so I hope you enjoyed
(01:16:38):
this episode with myconversation with kelly about
limit, as I was talking withKelly and learning more and more
about LEMIT I think you kind ofheard it.
Lemit is kind of it's notsynonymous, but LEMIT can give
(01:17:02):
us a sense of hope, like we'retaking our sorrows and our
struggles to a god that we know,because we read in his word
that he is faithful to hear ourcries, because we see it time
and time again in in scriptureshow he hears the cries of the
(01:17:24):
brokenhearted, those that are insorrow or in pain, and because
we know that, because we knowthis character of God, we have
the freedom to go to him at hisinvitation, to come before him
and express our sorrow.
But even in our sorrows andpain and grief, we have hope,
(01:17:50):
and I think that that's one ofthe things that most resonates
with me as we, as we talkedabout this practice, our prayer
of lament that we should beincorporating in our lives.
Lament is going to lead us intoa deeper relationship with God,
(01:18:13):
a deeper trust in him, and thenthat trust is going to help us
have hope in the future.
As we know, this world is notour final destination, it's just
a that, yet our we're passingthrough and Jesus is coming back
(01:18:36):
and we have hope that we willone day live with God forever
and he's going to make allthings new.
Well, thank you for listening tothis episode.
I hope it encouraged you.
If you know someone who isstruggling in a season of
(01:18:56):
suffering or grief or pain,please share this episode with
them.
Hopefully it will give themsome encouragement.
Well, until next time, rememberGod is always good and he's
always faithful.
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
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