It can be difficult to talk when you’re mad, anxious, stressed out, or suffering. Our emotions feel like dogs sprinting off their owner’s leashes. “I don’t have time to talk because my emotions have taken off and I don’t know where they went.” For times of struggle God has given a genre of Scripture to help us—the genre of laments. Within laments we find words for human struggles. Sufferers and sinners are offered words to help them grieve, cry, and even find hope. How do I see and talk to God when all I see and feel is darkness? How do I offer thanks when my insides feel like permanent knots? Laments are God’s gift to help us.

Psalms are a favorite place for Christians to turn. Within the different types of psalms, “[l]aments constitute the largest group of psalms in the Psalter.”¹ Out of 150 psalms “more than a third of the Psalter consists of ‘lament psalms.’ Some forty-two are individual laments, and another sixteen are corporate laments.”² With fifty-eight lament psalms (Fee and Stuart say over sixty!³) as well as the book of Lamentations, God has given our hearts, our emotions, and our faith much guidance and example in coming to Him.

Surely there is a spectrum of comfortability with lamenting before God. Some are free to scream out every last ounce of pain in total honesty, while others cannot muster one frustrating word. Here are a few thoughts for everyone on this spectrum.

Lamenting is a Form of Worship

When the psalmist says (44:23–24),

²³Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!
²⁴Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
²⁵For our soul is bowed down to the dust;
our belly clings to the ground.
²⁶Rise up; come to our help!
Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!

he is worshiping Yahweh. Laments are more than complaints; they are sincere struggles bathed in faith. As an apple changes when it is dipped in chocolate, so our laments are offered well when they are dipped in faith. It is okay to ask God hard questions, to express what you perceive, and to call Him for help, but it must be done in faith as an act of worship. “R. W. L. Moberly notes that ‘the predominance of laments at the very heart of Israel’s prayers means that the problems that give rise to lament are not something marginal or unusual but rather are central to the life of faith… Moreover they show that the experience of anguish and puzzlement in the life of faith is not a sign of deficient faith, something to be outgrown or put behind one, but rather is intrinsic to the very nature of faith.’”⁴ Laments and faith are not in opposition. They can and do go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Lamenting is a Way of Transformation

Lamenting helps us, even forces us, into new understandings of God. Our current understanding and faith is challenged by our current situation and we need God to transform us and move us on. I can remember having my heart broken in my early twenties and saying, “I’ll never love again!” Love is easy when someone loves you back. But when someone doesn’t it is difficult and forces growth. I believe God was gracious to minister to me before and during that lamenting moment. This lament helped refine and guide me to respond saying, “I can’t stop loving. If I do, I will be the one that loses.”

Lamenting is Brief When Compared to Eternity

The Apostle Paul said it well (Romans 8:18), “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Lamenting is a part of this life, but it will not be a part of our eternal lives. There is great hope to be remembered in lamenting the struggles of sin and suffering now. Our tears will desist. Broken hearts will never break again. Joy will be uninterrupted.

So lament my brother and sister in Christ. Lament in faith. Lament into the image of Jesus. Lament in perseverance. And remember (Romans 8:31), “If God is for us, who can be against us? And (Romans 8:37–39) “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”