We turn to God for comfort when bad things happen, even though we believe He could have prevented those bad things from happening in the first place.
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Matthew 5:4
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
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Psalm 34:18
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.
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Exodus 16:3
The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
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A complaint is an accusation against God that attacks His character, but a lament is an appeal to God based on confidence in His character.
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Lamentations 3:16-20
He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust. I have been deprived of peace. I have forgotten what prosperity is 18 So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord. I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me
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Lamentations 3:21-23
Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
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Lament is PRAISE to God.
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Lament is PROOF of Trust.
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Matthew 18:3
And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
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Lament is a PATH to intimacy with God.
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CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain
“God whispers to us in our pleasures… but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
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Lament is PARTICIPATION in the Pain of Others.
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Maya Angelou
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
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Lament is not our Final Prayer.
