Lament: Where the Hell Are You, God?

The church has entered the season of Lent. This is a focused period of humility, repentance, and embracing our own mortality. As my pastor has said a few times, Lent is not about asking, “What am I going to give up?” Rather, Lent asks, “Where have I moved away from God and how might I move toward him?”

This may happen within the realm of giving something up, fasting from a particular item that has pulled our heart away from the Father. But giving up something isn’t a magical formula—and we don’t need to give up something just to give up something, to show our own strong will. We are to be desirous that our hearts be uncovered, which will hopefully push us toward God as we feel our desperation. Perhaps even feel our pain.

But here’s the challenge.

We have become desensitized to our pain. If we hurt, we go out and buy something, we eat a lot of something, we delve into the world of our smart phone, we binge on another season, we look at porn. I know I have engaged in each of these, and others, at varying times. Anything to busy our minds. Anything to numb the ache. Whatever addiction we can tap into. Most of it is socially acceptable, that’s the frightening thing. We don’t have to commit adultery, burn a building down, cuss someone out. There are much more subversive practices that bury our hearts.

A few years back, I was reading Psalm 42 and I was struck by the opening words. Much of these will be well-known, but something caught me off guard this time around.

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?” (vs1-3)

We usually stop at vs2. Thus, the lyrical prayer is seen as someone engaged in a passionate worship session. But vs3 makes it very clear that these words are not describing what we first thought. Things are so bad, so terrible, that the psalmist’s tears have been his food day and night. He is crying so much that he knows the taste of his tears over his dinner.

What an image.

Did you know lament is the most prevalent type of psalm we find in the Psalms? They are everywhere. Starting in Psalm 3.

Returning to Psalm 42, I’m trying to think through what this lamenter was feeling as he scribbled this song down. He continues a bit further on:

I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?” (vs9-10)

Not your typical song lyrics on a Sunday morning. But very biblical, nonetheless. They are the modern-day equivalency of, “Where the hell are you, God?!”

At times, the ancients would approach this with sackcloth and ashes coupled with verbal mourning. Perhaps there was also darkness and stillness. One needs time to put words to their feelings. One needs space to just sit with their misery.

I would offer we have a lot to lament these days.

Sexual abuse. Politics. Poverty. Hunger. Sex-trafficking.

Betrayals. Job loss. Dissolved marriages. Addictions.

So much to lament.

And, so, will we embrace this intentional period of Lent to feel our loss, experience our pain, become acquainted with our griefs?

Will we sit and listen—if only to our own hearts?

Out of that space, we may then know how to give voice to what is going on. The honest expression in our words may spill forth.

Yes, the hope is to come out on the “other side,” as the psalmist ultimately also offers:

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God. (vs11)

But we don’t have to rush to that place.

Sit in silence. Be quiet. Feel. Let our heart’s recesses be exposed.

That is the first step in lament.