Hurting with God
During this season of confinement, I’m seeing many of my brothers and sisters in Christ learning an unfamiliar manifestation of prayer: Lament. We are learning to hurt with God.
Eleven years ago this week I watched my son Ian die, and entered into a fellowship with The Father that I had not known well before: the fellowship of His sufferings. It was then that I began writing my laments, my psalms of complaint.
It seems like God particularly likes such psalms. At least 30 of the 150 psalms that He breathed for us are psalms of complaint. Then through Jeremiah He added the entire book of Lamentations.
Why would God treasure our lament? He feels His own pain over the brokenness of this world, and He wants us to learn to hurt with Him. Laughing with someone builds friendship. Weeping with someone builds deep friendship.
All of creation groans, and God groans with it. It’s as if the Spirit of God is straddling the gap between heaven and earth and groaning in pain when the gap grows. In the Message, Romans 8:22-26 says, “The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within… God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.”
We need to learn to hurt with God. The pandemic may be letting up a bit for some of us, but for many of the most vulnerable in the world it will get much worse. Think of refugee camps and vast slums where social distancing and adequate medical care are out of reach.
Our prodigal God is hurting over His broken prodigal world. Jesus lamented. We need to learn to lament with Him.
I invite you to complete these three sentences in prayer:
As I look at the world today, I feel…. (Start where you are.)
I sense that the Spirit within me may feel…. (Allow His feelings to rise within you.)
In behalf of those who are suffering more than me I say, “We feel….”
Weep with those who weep, including God.
P.S. Click [here] to download a resource that I created to help others learn to lament.