Psalm 13:5 “But I will trust in your unfailing love.”
Do the struggles of your life ever make you wonder if God really loves you? When marriages are broken, children struggle, friends betray us, or our bodies age, it is easy to wonder over God’s goodness. When we go another cycle with no job offer, no pregnancy, or no second date, it is easy to think God is distant and disinterested.
Lament is God’s gift to us to know his love when we are suffering. It is the way we wrestle with our fears in order to see the Father as he truly is, full of love for his people.
Lament is a search to be connected to God when his care feels far away. There are three basic elements to every lament: the cry, pivot, and conclusion of trust. Each element reveals God’s love, leading us to deeper assurance and delight.
Lament begins with a cry or complaint, pouring out fear and unbelief to God. Psalm 13 is my favorite lament, opening with the bold question, “How long, O Lord?” We get to ask, God, where are you? Why don’t you act? Why is my life this way? Don’t you care?
These are questions of relationship and longing for connection. The Psalms model brutal honesty before God, pouring out questions, pain, and even anger to God.
Our Father invites us to reveal our hearts to him. The first step toward trust is wrestling with our unbelief, questions, and fear with God. Our questions do not jeopardize his love for us; rather, they drive us into his presence. We can complain boldly to our Father because he hears. The Father is the only One who can help us understand what seems dissonant. If we do not go to him, we will drift away from him.
The next element of lament that leads to God’s love is the pivot, marked with “yet” or “but.”
After we have given full vent to our cries, we must remember what is true about God. Psalm 13:5 says, “But I have trusted in your steadfast love.” This turn does not shut down the conversation or cover over pain with the right knowledge. It is the way we preach the gospel to our hearts since our feelings are not the measure of God’s goodness. Lament holds together what seems to be in contradiction, simultaneously questioning God’s love and clinging to God’s love.
The pivot is why we can confidently lament in the first place. We can fully enter our heart’s cries and aches and not be consumed by despair because the pivot turns our attention to our Savior who grieves with us and has conquered death. When we are disoriented by the questions that come with suffering, we need to be anchored to Jesus. The pivot is how we interpret our experience with God’s unfailing love. It is the handrail that leads us through disorientation to settled trust.
The last element of lament is trust, the result of the heart changing through lament. Lament leads us to see the Father’s love and to discover that it is a generous love. Psalm 13:6 ends with praise, “because he has dealt bountifully with me.” Circumstances may not have changed, but our perspective has.
Our experience does not cancel out God’s love for us. Instead, we see his gracious, compassionate heart of grace toward the anxious, heavy laden sinner. We learn that we can wrestle with him in confidence that the experience will grow our faith.
Lament begins with scarcity and need, crying out to the Lord about unmet desire and confusion. It ends with the pace and trust that come from laying it all on the table for the Lord to oversee. Once we have given voice to fear and unbelief, we hunger for what is true of God. We rest in his goodness. The fruit of lament is confidence in the future, expecting and praising the Lord for how he will work because he has proven his character in the past.
God has given us lament to learn about his love when we do not feel his love. This is the process of growing from head knowledge to heart assurance. Through lament, I have learned to entrust myself to the Father and to more deeply believe that he is good to me.
The timing of my life is not what I would have chosen, with prolonged singleness, living far from family, and a long road to children. Yet, through lament I have discovered the joy of clinging to Jesus in the waiting and wondering. I have walked through seasons of angsty lament and painful disorientation, and I have come out knowing that I am held by my God.
As I still wait with unmet longings, I know that he has been generous to me. He is generous to you, too. Will you pour out your heart to him? Will you wrestle to see his love? Our God of lament invites you.
Laura Straka has worked for Reformed University Fellowship at Emory University since 2014. She has a Master of Arts (Biblical Studies) degree from Reformed Theological Seminary Atlanta. Laura and her husband Weston love their Atlanta neighborhood and their church.