Chapter 3: Longing and Lament
Lamenting might be the most misunderstood and neglected spiritual discipline for Christians. Maybe it is because we feel that acknowledging our deep suffering - allowing ourselves to face the facts that our reality is truly broken and hurts us to our innermost being - is in some way us being unfaithful to God. After all, we have hope, right? Our hope is that we have a surety that our final destination is before the face of God! By all means, believe this to the praise of His God's glorious grace. But lamenting, biblically, is grabbing onto this hope in our most profound suffering. Kapic says, "We will only discover hope when we are ruthlessly honest about what lies between us and that hope."“We will only discover hope when we are ruthlessly honest about what lies between us and that hope”
Lamenting is not confessing sin; it is naming the injustice and brokenness we all witness and experience daily and bringing Christ into our experience. We have many examples of lamenting in the Bible; consider that 40-60% of the Psalms contain laments, that there is an Old Testament book called Lamentations, and even Jesus himself laments (Jn. 11). Lamenting is not being faithless (let this not be said of Christ!), instead, lamenting is being honestly faithful. The end goal of lamenting is not that our suffering is removed or that we have the answers to why we're suffering, but that in our 'ruthless honesty' we draw closer to God through Christ - our ever-present hope and comforter. This is faith.