Transcript

Lament · Clay to Crown

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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome to our next episode of the Clay
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Speaker 1: to Crown podcast. Once again, my name is Amanda Hughes,
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Speaker 1: coming to you from beautiful Beaufort, South Carolina. And I'm
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Speaker 1: looking out my window and it is just a gorgeous
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Speaker 1: day outside. The sun is shining, my camellias are still blooming,
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Speaker 1: and it's just gorgeous. And it's like gonna be 80
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Speaker 1: degrees today. So that's exciting. I went to the local
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Speaker 1: garden center and bought a bunch of flowering plants this morning.
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Speaker 1: So I'm going to get busy with doing all of
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Speaker 1: that a little bit later today. But I wanted to
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Speaker 1: come and continue like this opening introductory episodes of this podcast.
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Speaker 1: And I wanted to continue that with this With the
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Speaker 1: second thing that I think frames a lot of my
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Speaker 1: teachings and a lot of my vision, and it's rooted
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Speaker 1: in really the first one. You know, what I'm about
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Speaker 1: to talk about today is really rooted in the character
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Speaker 1: of God. And once we get into it, I'll show
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Speaker 1: you how. But today I'm going to be talking about
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Speaker 1: the biblical practice of lament. And some of you right
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Speaker 1: now are saying, of what? And that's because in our
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Speaker 1: 21st century Western church context, we don't hear that word
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Speaker 1: a whole lot. But I think we do a disservice,
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Speaker 1: those of us who are pastors and teachers of the word,
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Speaker 1: we do a disservice to those who we're trying to
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Speaker 1: shepherd when we don't talk about it because they're going
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Speaker 1: through stuff. right? The people who are sitting in our
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Speaker 1: churches or listening to our teachings or listening to a
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Speaker 1: Bible teaching, they're going through stuff. And it's the biblical
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Speaker 1: practice of lament that I have found in my own
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Speaker 1: life that helps me to get through stuff. And you know,
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Speaker 1: And some of you who know something about lament, maybe
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Speaker 1: you're not even comfortable with it, right? Because you're like,
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Speaker 1: I can't complain to an almighty God. But here's the
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Speaker 1: spoiler alert. He wants us to. He wants us to
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Speaker 1: complain to him. Because he's the only one that can
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Speaker 1: do anything about the stuff in the first place. And
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Speaker 1: You know, you might, as we get going to it,
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Speaker 1: you know, lament is not the opposite of faith. I
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Speaker 1: think it is a beautiful expression of it. And there
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Speaker 1: was a time in my life when I was in
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Speaker 1: a kind of a dark place, right? The circumstances that
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Speaker 1: I was going through at the time surrounding my son
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Speaker 1: and his adoption and just some of the just different things, right?
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Speaker 1: My life was not supposed to be the way it was.
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Speaker 1: In a nutshell, that's how I was feeling. It wasn't
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Speaker 1: supposed to be this way. And I was a ministry director.
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Speaker 1: I was leading my local church's women's ministry at the time,
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Speaker 1: and I was in a dark place. And I'm sure
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Speaker 1: that if I had gone and seen a counselor at
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Speaker 1: that time, they probably would have diagnosed me with depression.
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Speaker 1: I thought I was a bad Christian. I thought that
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Speaker 1: God hated me. You know, there was all kinds of
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Speaker 1: things just running around in my head. Like, how can
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Speaker 1: I be a women's ministry leader and speak life into
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Speaker 1: the people that I'm supposed to lead if I can't
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Speaker 1: even speak life into myself? You know, and these would
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Speaker 1: be the thoughts that were coming around in my head.
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Speaker 1: And One day I was out walking my dog and
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Speaker 1: I was listening to a podcast and it was a
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Speaker 1: podcast by Nancy DeMoss Walgemuth. It was a Revive Our
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Speaker 1: Hearts podcast. And she was interviewing an author and that
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Speaker 1: author's name was Mark Vrogop. And he had written a
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Speaker 1: book called Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy. And I found myself
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Speaker 1: as I was listening to this podcast, I found myself
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Speaker 1: crying as I was walking down my street. And I
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Speaker 1: realized in those moments that I wasn't a bad Christian,
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Speaker 1: that there was a way out of this dark hole
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Speaker 1: that I was finding myself and that my faith wasn't
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Speaker 1: in the toilet. Mark Rogoff says that lament is a
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Speaker 1: prayer in pain that leads to trust. Okay. So let's
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Speaker 1: talk about it. What is lament? Um, like I said,
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Speaker 1: some of you listening, you might not have even heard, um, what, uh,
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Speaker 1: that word before ever. Right. Um, but, but here's the kicker. Uh,
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Speaker 1: One third of the Psalms, there's 150 Psalms in the Bible,
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Speaker 1: the book of Psalms, it's 150 of them. One third
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Speaker 1: of those are lament Psalms, one third. It's those Psalms
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Speaker 1: where the Psalmist says, how long, oh Lord? Why have
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Speaker 1: you forsaken me, oh Lord? Jesus says that from the cross, right?
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Speaker 1: One of the last things he says on this earth
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Speaker 1: Prior to his resurrection, he says, my God, my God,
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Speaker 1: why have you forsaken me? So Jesus himself was lamenting.
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Speaker 1: He lamented in Gethsemane, and we'll talk about that a
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Speaker 1: little bit later. The book of Lamentations, that is the
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Speaker 1: prophet Jeremiah's lament over the city of Jerusalem. And so
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Speaker 1: what is lament? Biblical lament is honest grief, honest grief,
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Speaker 1: but it's anchored in the hope of God, hope in God.
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Speaker 1: You know, that's why Mark Rogoff says it's a prayer
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Speaker 1: in pain that leads to trust. Because again, going back
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Speaker 1: to the last episodes, God's character is a character that
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Speaker 1: we can trust. And You know, and lament matters today.
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Speaker 1: I think probably, especially again, those of us in our
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Speaker 1: 21st century American church context, it matters today immensely because
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Speaker 1: we live in a culture of distraction, right? We live
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Speaker 1: in a culture where we can just zone out and
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Speaker 1: into our phones and into those social media reels, and
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Speaker 1: we don't have to think about it. We numb ourselves
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Speaker 1: with things that make us laugh, with things that, you know,
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Speaker 1: make us angry, you know, if we're talking about, you know,
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Speaker 1: the current situations, you know, in politics or around the
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Speaker 1: world or around the globe or whatever. And I, you know,
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Speaker 1: without lament, that numbing and that distraction, it can become
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Speaker 1: isolation because then we don't address the thing that's holding
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Speaker 1: us captive. We're just trying to forget it. We're just
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Speaker 1: trying to forget about it. And, you know, I think, too,
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Speaker 1: we push our emotions down. I was talking to somebody
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Speaker 1: recently about how, you know, we try to put on
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Speaker 1: this happy face, you know, and make, you know... like
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Speaker 1: everything is okay. Because if my, you know, fellow church
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Speaker 1: goer sees that I'm down in the dumps, they're going
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Speaker 1: to come to me and they're going to say, what's wrong? And, oh,
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Speaker 1: you know, God loves you. Or, oh, just, just, you know,
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Speaker 1: just read the Bible more, you know, or just pray more,
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Speaker 1: you know, and where all those things are good. And
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Speaker 1: I used to tell people those same things. And those
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Speaker 1: things are great and you should pray more and you
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Speaker 1: should read the Bible more. But there is a process
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Speaker 1: to get through that you can't just go from A
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Speaker 1: to C. You have to go through B first. And
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Speaker 1: so in our culture of distraction, we want to skip it.
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Speaker 1: We want to push it down. And what lament does,
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Speaker 1: it reconnects us. Lament can reconnect us to God. It
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Speaker 1: reconnects us to ourselves and it can reconnect us to community.
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Speaker 1: And when we, when we look at the Psalms and
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Speaker 1: Mark Rogoff teaches this in his book, and like I said,
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Speaker 1: his book, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, I don't mean to
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Speaker 1: keep plugging it, but it really did change, um, my
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Speaker 1: outlook on a lot of things. And it changed my
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Speaker 1: life at that particular moment. Um, But essentially, and this
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Speaker 1: is how biblical laments go. You can look at the
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Speaker 1: Psalms and you can see it, but Mark explains it
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Speaker 1: very well. There's four movements of biblical lament, right? Turning, complaining, asking,
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Speaker 1: and trusting. So the first one is turning. You turn
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Speaker 1: to God. And that's why it's important. to know that
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Speaker 1: if you're turning to God, you still have faith. Like
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Speaker 1: I said back then that my faith was bad. You know,
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Speaker 1: my faith was in the toilet or I didn't have
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Speaker 1: any faith anymore. You know, whatever I might've said in
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Speaker 1: the moments that But that's not true because if I
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Speaker 1: turn to God, then I still have faith. It's in,
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Speaker 1: it's if you're so far gone that you don't turn
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Speaker 1: to God anymore that you should be concerned and worried.
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Speaker 1: But if you're still turning to God, that is the
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Speaker 1: first choice. Even, you know, the Psalm is how long,
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Speaker 1: oh Lord, that is an act of faith because you
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Speaker 1: expect him to answer. Right? You wouldn't be asking a
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Speaker 1: question if you didn't expect a response. And so when
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Speaker 1: you're turning to him and you're asking how long, oh Lord,
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Speaker 1: or why, oh Lord, or any of those things, you're
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Speaker 1: choosing to bring that pain to him as an act
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Speaker 1: of faith. And then the second step is, you know,
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Speaker 1: you're complaining. You are spilling the beans to God. You're saying, oh,
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Speaker 1: How long, oh Lord, is this going to keep happening?
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Speaker 1: This ABC situation that I find myself in, you know,
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Speaker 1: whatever it is, how long, oh Lord, are you going
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Speaker 1: to continue to allow this? Aren't I your child? I
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Speaker 1: am complaining to you. You're naming your reality at face
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Speaker 1: value without editing because guess what? The all-knowing God of
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Speaker 1: the universe knows what's wrong already. But what you're doing
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Speaker 1: is that you are kind of laying your soul bare
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Speaker 1: for yourself. You're naming it. You're naming it out loud.
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Speaker 1: Because God wants to invite that honesty, right? He wants it.
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Speaker 1: Why do you think he asked, you know, Adam where
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Speaker 1: he was in the garden? God knew where he was.
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Speaker 1: Why did he ask Cain, where's your brother? God already
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Speaker 1: knew what Cain had done to his brother Abel. He
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Speaker 1: already knew. But yet he wants the honesty. He wants
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Speaker 1: us to reveal ourselves to him. on a personal level,
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Speaker 1: he wants to hear our complaints. And it's not about performance.
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Speaker 1: It's not about just putting a check in the box.
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Speaker 1: It's being raw and honest before the face of a
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Speaker 1: holy and loving God. And then the next thing you
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Speaker 1: do is that you ask. So you turn, you complain,
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Speaker 1: and then you ask. You're petitioning the Lord to act
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Speaker 1: in your behalf. Faith believes that God can intervene. And
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Speaker 1: that's so important. Faith believes that God can intervene. You know,
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Speaker 1: and I didn't have this in my notes, but I
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Speaker 1: feel led to pull up Psalm 13 because this is
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Speaker 1: a wonderful lament psalm. It's a psalm of David. And
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Speaker 1: we've already talked about, you know, turning to God and complaining.
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Speaker 1: And then now we're at the asking. And let me
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Speaker 1: just read it. Psalm 13, and I'm reading out of
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Speaker 1: the NIV, and it says, How long, O Lord, will
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Speaker 1: you forget me forever? So this is David. He's turning
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Speaker 1: to God, and he's complaining. He thinks that the Lord
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Speaker 1: has forgotten him. Another complaint, how long will you hide
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Speaker 1: your face from me? Another complaint, how long must I
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Speaker 1: wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow
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Speaker 1: in my heart? Another complaint, how long will my enemy
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Speaker 1: triumph over me? And now he's asking. Verse three is
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Speaker 1: David starting to ask. He says, look on me and
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Speaker 1: answer me. Lord, my God. He's petitioning to give light
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Speaker 1: to my eyes or I will sleep in death. And
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Speaker 1: my enemy will say I have overcome him and my
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Speaker 1: foes will overjoice when I fall. Those are his askings.
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Speaker 1: So he turned, he complained in raw honesty. He's asking
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Speaker 1: God to act. And then he's, the last step is
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Speaker 1: trust him. He's choosing to hope in God's character. That's
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Speaker 1: what it means to trust. Verse five, he says, but
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Speaker 1: I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in
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Speaker 1: your salvation. I will sing the Lord's praise for he
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Speaker 1: has been good to me. I will sing the Lord's praise. Why? Why?
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Speaker 1: because he trusts in his unfailing love, because his heart
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Speaker 1: rejoices in his salvation. He's speaking of the Lord's character.
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Speaker 1: He just laid it all out, right? How long, oh Lord,
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Speaker 1: will you forget me forever? But, and all laments hinge
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Speaker 1: on a but, yet. However, all of them hinge on that.
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Speaker 1: And that when we get to that hinge, that's when,
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Speaker 1: that's when we trust because we can trust in his character.
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Speaker 1: And like I said, I talked about that last episode.
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Speaker 1: So lament is the bridge between all that suffering, just
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Speaker 1: like Psalm 13 kind of laid out. How, you know,
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Speaker 1: will you hide your face from me forever? My enemy
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Speaker 1: is coming at me. I'm on the run. You know,
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Speaker 1: all of these things that David is thinking, he's suffering
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Speaker 1: because He's probably hungry from day to day sometimes, you know.
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Speaker 1: He's suffering. Yet he laments to the Lord. And in
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Speaker 1: the end, that lament is the bridge between his current
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Speaker 1: situation and trusting in God. And so when you go
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Speaker 1: through that process, when you go through the process of
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Speaker 1: turning and complaining and asking and trusting God, What does
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Speaker 1: that lament then produce in us, right? Because it produces
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Speaker 1: something in us. That's why it's so powerful. That's why
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Speaker 1: it changed my outlook. And that's why it changed how
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Speaker 1: I view the Lord, number one, but then viewed my circumstances, right?
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Speaker 1: Because we always think our circumstances are really big and
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Speaker 1: can overtake us and overcome us. And when in fact,
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Speaker 1: in the big scheme of things, our circumstances are pretty small.
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Speaker 1: In the reality of all creation and the reality of
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Speaker 1: all eternity, our circumstances are small. And so what lament
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Speaker 1: produces in us when we go through those four movements,
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Speaker 1: I think number one, it produces some emotional integrity. We
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Speaker 1: can be comfortable with our emotions and it's okay to
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Speaker 1: be angry, right? And it's okay to grieve and it's
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Speaker 1: okay to be sad and it's okay to be disenfranchised
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Speaker 1: and all of those things. It's okay. And then emotional
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Speaker 1: integrity produces then a deeper intimacy with God because when
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Speaker 1: we can be emotionally raw with our creator, just like
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Speaker 1: a spouse or a parent or something or a friend,
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Speaker 1: when you can be emotionally... raw with those people and
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Speaker 1: they don't turn away from you and they, they show
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Speaker 1: empathy towards you and they show love towards you that,
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Speaker 1: that builds a deepest, a deeper intimacy, right? And, and
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Speaker 1: the same thing happens with our relationship with God. We,
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Speaker 1: we grow deeper with him and it gives us compassion
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Speaker 1: for others. Um, I used to not be very compassionate.
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Speaker 1: I was in the Navy, you guys know that. I
18:45
Speaker 1: was in the Navy for 21 years. I lived, growing up,
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Speaker 1: I didn't necessarily have a loving family surrounding me. I
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Speaker 1: was hard, not crazy hard, but I didn't have a
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Speaker 1: lot of compassion for people. I would be like, suck
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Speaker 1: it up, buttercup, and just move along smartly. Um, especially
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Speaker 1: if it was something that they did on their own that,
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Speaker 1: you know, kind of got them to where they were.
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Speaker 1: I really had no sympathy for you then. I had
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Speaker 1: no compassion for you then. Um, but as I, and,
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Speaker 1: and the Lord's funny, right? He, he does this. He
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Speaker 1: puts us in situations to where he refines us. And those,
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Speaker 1: that those spiritual giftings that he wants us to have
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Speaker 1: in the future, sometimes he'll, He'll go, he'll put us
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Speaker 1: through those same things, right? So I needed compassion for people.
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Speaker 1: Like I said, you know, I was the women's ministry
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Speaker 1: director for a long time before I stepped into my
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Speaker 1: teaching role as the disciplinarian. pastor. And I couldn't deal
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Speaker 1: with all of these emotions. And then I started to
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Speaker 1: have emotions. I started to have some things happen to
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Speaker 1: me that I didn't appreciate and that I couldn't control emotionally.
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Speaker 1: And now looking back on it, the Lord and his
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Speaker 1: wisdom and his grace and his mercy developed that in me.
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Speaker 1: And he showed me lament. And I have compassion for
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Speaker 1: others now. And then it also builds a faith that
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Speaker 1: can withstand storms, right? So when things happen to you,
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Speaker 1: and believe me, things are going to happen. Right? Stuff
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Speaker 1: is going to happen. And so... Are you going to
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Speaker 1: be tossed to and fro, or are you going to
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Speaker 1: remember that you're standing on that strong foundation that is
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Speaker 1: God Almighty, the living God, the creator of the universe?
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Speaker 1: Are you going to stand on the rock that he
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Speaker 1: put you on because that rock is him? And so
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Speaker 1: lament builds a faith that can withstand storms. And so
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Speaker 1: how do you practice lament? Well, number one, um, pray
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Speaker 1: a Psalm of lament. I think if, if you're looking
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Speaker 1: into this, if you're, um, you know, curious about what
21:20
Speaker 1: it is, like I said, 150 Psalms and about 50
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Speaker 1: of them are laments. Read Psalm 13, read Psalm 22. Um, there's,
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Speaker 1: there's 50 of them to choose from. Pray that like
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Speaker 1: you're going through something. Pray Psalm 13. Pray it over
21:38
Speaker 1: your situation. How long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever?
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Speaker 1: How long will you hide your face from me? You're
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Speaker 1: dealing with intrusive thoughts. You know, how long must I
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Speaker 1: wrestle with my thoughts? Aren't you going to deliver me
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Speaker 1: from this, right? Just pray that upon yourself. You know,
21:58
Speaker 1: praying the word of God over yourself is powerful. Or
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Speaker 1: you can write your own lament prayer, write it out,
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Speaker 1: you know, um, use the Psalms as a reference, but
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Speaker 1: put your particular circumstances, um, in the prayer. And then also,
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Speaker 1: I think it's important and, and, you know, maybe we
22:19
Speaker 1: don't talk about this enough is, is, is lamenting in community,
22:23
Speaker 1: doing things in community. Um, when we name our collective grief, um,
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Speaker 1: grief over the way things are going in the world
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Speaker 1: or grief over the way things are going in your
22:43
Speaker 1: town or in your marriage or in your friendships or
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Speaker 1: in your church or whatever it is. I don't know.
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Speaker 1: I don't know. But when we do it together, we
22:53
Speaker 1: were built for community. I talked about this last time.
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Speaker 1: We were built for relationship. And when there's people that
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Speaker 1: are going through the same thing when we can lament
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Speaker 1: in community, I think it's a powerful, powerful thing. You know,
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Speaker 1: so in closing, I think, again, the biblical practice of
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Speaker 1: lament is something that we do not do enough in
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Speaker 1: the American church. It is not weakness. It is strength
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Speaker 1: to cry out to the Lord. You're crying out to
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Speaker 1: him in faith. You're crying out to the one person
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Speaker 1: that can do anything about it in the first place.
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Speaker 1: You're crying out to the one that is in control.
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Speaker 1: And when we do that, God meets us there. And
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Speaker 1: he meets us there tenderly. And in the places that
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Speaker 1: we can name most honestly, he meets us there. And
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Speaker 1: I know for myself that I have become so much... stronger,
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Speaker 1: I guess, for lack of a better word, as we're,
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Speaker 1: as we're talking, I have become so much stronger in
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Speaker 1: the Lord when I understand that he, he wants to
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Speaker 1: hear from me. He wants to hear from me raw,
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Speaker 1: not camouflaged, not trying to cover something up. And he
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Speaker 1: wants to hear from me deeply. A lament is not
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Speaker 1: a surface level prayer. A lament is deep crying out
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Speaker 1: to deep. A lament is your soul crying out to
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Speaker 1: your creator. And those things are important. Those things are important.
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Speaker 1: And remember, you can always trust the Lord because you
24:48
Speaker 1: trust in his character. And I don't remember if I
24:52
Speaker 1: said it. this time or the last time, how do
24:55
Speaker 1: you know you can sit in a chair that you've
24:58
Speaker 1: sat in a thousand times? Because you've sat in it
25:01
Speaker 1: a thousand times. How do you know you can trust
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Speaker 1: a God that you've gone to a thousand times? Because
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Speaker 1: you've gone to him a thousand times. Because your mother
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Speaker 1: went to him a thousand times. Because your father went
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Speaker 1: to him a thousand times. Because your church has gone
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Speaker 1: to him a thousand times. Because the people in the
25:27
Speaker 1: biblical story went to him a thousand times. And over
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Speaker 1: and over and over again, he has shown himself to
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Speaker 1: be true and faithful and trustworthy. And God is who
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Speaker 1: he says he is. All right. Well, thank you so
25:50
Speaker 1: much for joining me on this episode. hopefully you've gotten
25:57
Speaker 1: something out of these last couple and then we'll come
26:02
Speaker 1: together again and we'll see you for the next episode
26:06
Speaker 1: again I am Amanda Hughes and this is Clay to
26:09
Speaker 1: Crown