Message: “Lament: A Forgotten Prayer” from Chris Dillon
Chris Dillon - January 10, 2021
Lament: A Forgotten Prayer
For thousands of years, God’s people have had a unique method of handling the storms, pain and disappointment of life in a broken world. Saints in the Old Testament practiced it, followers of Christ in the New Testament modeled it, and Jesus Himself embraced this practice in His most pain-filled moments. But over the last century or so, the Western church has seemingly lost this practice, and we are poorer for it. We are weaker, not stronger. This lost practice is called lament. In fact, over a third (40%) of the Psalms are psalms of lament. Entire books, like Lamentations and Job are books of lament. So what is lament? Lament is the space between pain and promise. It’s the prayer of tears that leads to hope and praise. Lament is learning to press into God in the pain instead of running away from Him. The most amazing thing? He welcomes our laments. Through them, we find a God who is ever-present, all-powerful, compassionate and willing to walk the dark valleys of life with us. We will discover that a lament is typically a 4 part prayer of faith. Each part honestly building toward a crescendo of trust in God. And this week, we’ll start by looking at the prototypical lament psalm, Psalm 13. If you’re suffering, God offers you the light of hope!
