Lament

Did you know that one third of the Psalms are songs of lament? Yet, the number of contemporary Christian worship songs dedicated to this type of prayer and conversation to the Lord are few and far between. Music and dance help us to express emotion is a way that transcends words.

The music and dance of lament don’t seek to rush past grief and sorrow, instead it invites us to sit in it so that the words of comfort and hope from the Holy Spirit can seep into the deepest reaches our dark clouds.

A broken world and increasingly hostile culture make contemporary Christianity unbalanced and limited in the hope we offer if we neglect this minor-key song. We need to recover the ancient practice of lament and the grace that comes through it.

Mark Vroegop – Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy

Enjoy this Youtube playlist which features a curated list of worship songs and dances of lament.

This Spotify playlist includes both worship songs of lament and Psalms put to modern music.

2022 21-Days of Prayer and Fasting

I invite you to journey through lament with others so you can experience a loving community that discovers grace and hope together. However if you’re not in a growth group and want to join one for the 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, please contact me.

LiLing Pang – liling@newlifepacifica.com

Week 1

• Why does it take faith to lament?
• What are some of the hard and painful questions that you have asked God over the years?
• How does the cross of Jesus provide the ultimate anchor and hope for our present pain and suffering regardless of whether it looks like anger, grief, disappointment, betrayal, physical or emotional pain, persecution, or loss?

Week 2

• Have you written a song of lament or made an art piece of lament, take turns to share it with your group.
• Pray over each other and boldly ask God to meet each other in this place of lament.
• Are there promises from God you can remind each other of to help encourage each other to make the transition to hope?

Week 3

• How has God strengthened your relationship with him through these 3 weeks of engaging with lament?
• In what ways has your conversation with God evolved in the past few days?
• In what ways is God calling you to trust Him deeper in 2022?
• How can you individually and corporately walk with others to journey through pain and offer them the hope you have discovered in God?

2022 21-Days of Prayer and Fasting

➼ Read lamentations 3. Look at how Jeremiah’s mindset shifts with the words “Yet” and “But”. These are crucial turning points in lament, often being the pivotal shifts in our understanding of the truth

➼ Identify the truths that Jeremiah rehearses. Are there other truths you need to rehearse?

Rewrite them as declarations in your own words as you preach them to your heart.

2022 21-Days of Prayer and Fasting

In Lamentations 4, five idols that the people have misplaced their trust in are identified.

Fixation on Financial Security

Lamentations 4:1
How the gold has lost its luster!
Even the finest gold has become dull.
The sacred gemstones lie scattered in the streets!

Cultural Comfort

Lamentations 4: 5
The people who once ate the richest foods now beg in the streets for anything they can get.
Those who once wore the finest clothes now search the garbage dumps for food.

Treating People like Saviors

Lamentations 4:12
Not a king in all the earth—
no one in all the world—
would have believed that an enemy
could march through the gates of Jerusalem.

Idolizing Spiritual Leaders

Lamentations 4:13
Yet it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the sins of her priests, who defiled the city by shedding innocent blood.

Resumption of Divine Favor

Lamentations 4:6
The guilt of my people is greater than that of Sodom, where utter disaster struck in a moment and no hand offered help.

➼ How have the losses and suffering we are enduring currently revealed similar or different idols? What have we placed our trust and hope in, only for it to fall short of expectations?

➼ How have you responded to the changes in our culture over the last ten years? What about your friends, family, or church community?

➼ Where have you and others experienced despair and hopelessness?

➼ How can lament help you reorient your hope towards the cross, the character of God, and His eternal promises?

2022 21-Days of Prayer and Fasting

The book of Lamentations was written by the prophet Jeremiah. This five chapter series of laments were written while Israel and Judah were in exile and Jerusalem was in ruins. Here are the opening lines.

Lamentations 1:1-2: 14

Jerusalem, once so full of people, is now deserted.
She who was once great among the nations now sits alone like a widow.
Once the queen of all the earth, she is now a slave.
She sobs through the night; tears stream down her cheeks.
Among all her lovers, there is no one left to comfort her.
All her friends have betrayed her and become her enemies.

After laying out the sorrowful condition of Jerusalem and their relationship with God, comes an admission of Israel and Judah’s sin that has led them to this disastrous situation.

Lamentations 1:14

He wove my sins into ropes
to hitch me to a yoke of captivity.
The Lord sapped my strength and turned me over to my enemies;
I am helpless in their hands.”

Personal Repentance

➼ Reflect on the personal areas of pain you are lamenting. How has sin in yourself and in others brought you to this place?

Colossians 1: 13-14

For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom[a] and forgave our sins.

➼ This promise gives us confidence to seek our Heavenly Father in repentance. In your own words or in the words of King David, bring your sin to the cross.

Psalm 51: 10-11
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.

➼ Take 10 minutes to read the news as part of your devotional time. Invite the Holy Spirit to read the news with you. Pick one article to read thoroughly. As you do, ask God to show you sin’s part in that current crisis.

Lamentations 2:10-11

The leaders of beautiful Jerusalem sit on the ground in silence.
They are clothed in burlap and throw dust on their heads.
The young women of Jerusalem hang their heads in shame.
I have cried until the tears no longer come; my heart is broken.
My spirit is poured out in agony as I see the desperate plight of my people.
Little children and tiny babies are fainting and dying in the streets.

➼ Reflect on the area of brokenness and suffering the Holy Spirit has drawn your attention to. Describe the suffering and injustice you observe and cry out to God for mercy and forgiveness. Ask Him to restore his Kingdom.

2022 21-Days of Prayer and Fasting

Turn

➼ Consider the difficult questions you have for God. Is there an area of pain, regret, or sorrow that you’ve stopped talking to God about?

➼ These are the words the Psalmists have turned to God with. Try these words yourself or write your own call to God.

Psalm 77:1-2 – I cry out to God; yes, I shout. Oh, that God would listen to me!

Psalm 10:1 – O Lord, why do you stand so far away? Why do you hide when I am in trouble?

Psalm 22:1-2 – My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help?

Psalm 42:1 – As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.

Psalm 42:3 – Day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, “Where is this God of yours?

Psalm 90:13 – O Lord, come back to us!

Psalm 13:1 – O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way?

Psalm 86:1 – Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer; answer me, for I need your help.

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Complain

➼ What are some reasons you are reluctant to voice your complaints to God in prayer?

Psalm 6:2 – Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak. Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.

Psalm 10:3 – The wicked boasts of the desires of his soul.

Psalm 10:7 – Their mouths are full of cursing, lies, and threats. Trouble and evil are on the tips of their tongues.

Psalm 10:9 Like lions crouched in hiding, they wait to pounce on the helpless.

Psalm 10:11 – God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.

Psalm 12: 2 – Neighbors lie to each other, speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts.

Psalm 25:17 – My problems go from bad to worse. Oh, save me from them all!

Psalm 25: 19 – See how many enemies I have and how viciously they hate me!

Psalm 31: 10 – I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness. Sin has drained my strength; I am wasting away from within.

➼ If you haven’t already began to write a list of your hard questions for God. Let’s begin.

➼ A picture is worth a thousand words. As you reflect on how you are feeling, search for imagery to describe your feelings and explore them further. (e.g. Submerged by a waterfall, walking on a tightrope, pushing a boulder uphill, a city under siege, lost in a desert…”

Come humble, come honest, but don’t get stuck in complaining.

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Ask

When the Psalmists appeal to God, their bold requests fall into nine general groupings – for God to to rise, to grant help, to remember his covenant, to enact justice, to forget sins, to restore us, to not be silent, to listen, to teach, and to vindicate.

Psalm 10:12 – Arise, O Lord! Punish the wicked, O God! Do not ignore the helpless!

Psalm 6: 4 – Return, O Lord, and rescue me. Save me because of your unfailing love.

Psalm 22:11 – Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near, and no one else can help me.

Psalm 31:2 – Turn your ear to listen to me; rescue me quickly. Be my rock of protection, a fortress where I will be safe.

Psalm 25:4 – Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow.

Psalm 25:6 – Remember, O Lord, your compassion and unfailing love, which you have shown from long ages past.

Psalm 43:1 – Declare me innocent, O God! Defend me against these ungodly people. Rescue me from these unjust liars.

Psalm 51:2 – Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin.

Psalm 51: 10 – Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.

➼ As you place yourself before God’s throne of Grace, lean upon your knowledge of his character and pray accordingly. If you’re having difficulty praying boldly, invite a friend to pray with you and on your behalf. The bold prayers of a friend can rub off.

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Trust

➼ As we have watched God’s big story unfold this year as a church, what have you observed about God’s character and his eternal plan? What can you call upon to help renew your trust in God?

Psalm 77:19

Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters—a pathway no one knew was there! You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.

After calling out to God, the final movement of Psalm 77 demonstrates this final movement of lament beautifully. Here the Psalmist recalls God’s previous faithfulness and deliverance.

The Bible is full of stories in which God enacts plans for his people. Many of these stories form the basis of our faith in God’s reliability. “For the Christian, the exodus event …is the cross of Christ. There, is where all our questions – our heartaches and pain – should be taken. The cross shows us that God has already proven himself to be for us and not against us.”

Romans 8:22-25, 31-34

For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

➼ As you move into this final phase of lament, invite the Holy Spirit to minister to your heart as you reaffirm your trust in the truth of the Cross, the hope you’ve been promised, and your identity as the beloved child of God.

Psalm 22: 9-10 – Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast. I was thrust into your arms at my birth. You have been my God from the moment I was born.

Psalm 10:17-18 – Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them.

Psalm 6:9 The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord will answer my prayer.

Psalm 13: 5-6 – But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me.I will sing to the Lord because he is good to me.

Psalm 31:19 – How great is the goodness you have stored up for those who fear you.You lavish it on those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world.

2022 21-Days of Prayer and Fasting