{"id":48697,"date":"2021-05-10T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.olivetree.com\/blog\/?p=48697"},"modified":"2022-09-20T13:17:24","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T20:17:24","slug":"lamentations-the-community-weeps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.olivetree.com\/blog\/lamentations-the-community-weeps\/","title":{"rendered":"Lamentations: The Community Weeps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I was younger, I didn’t understand the concept of lament. I believed that questioning God about my traumas was sinful. He is the great and powerful King of the universe! How dare I blame him for my itty bitty problems? There are others who have it much worse, after all. In fact, I thought that bringing complaints to God would only move Him to make it worse for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This view of God could not be further from the truth.<\/strong> Not only does He care about my troubles, but He is big enough to handle every emotion I can hurl at Him. Even further, He purposefully included in Scripture many accusations and emotionally-packed grievances against Him. By incorporating these dramatic expressions of grief, God is saying He doesn’t want us to suffer in silence; in fact, His Word models what it can look like to bring your stuff<\/em> to the foot of His throne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Lament?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A professor once told me that “lament is faith’s answer to despair<\/em>“. There’s a tension that exists between what you know and what you experience. You know<\/em> that God is good, yet it feels like<\/em> God is nowhere to be found. What do you do when you feel this way? You lament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psalms 6<\/a>, 10<\/a>, 22<\/a>, and a multitude of others present a basic framework for lament; the longest biblical lament is the aptly named book of Lamentations. The ingredients of lament are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n