The Value of Lament
Published: Fri, 10/11/24
Updated: Mon, 10/14/24
Sessions Include:Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #1 Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #2 Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #3 Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #4 Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #5 Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #6 Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #7
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I began to see the redemptive value of lament and wonder why it was often missing. For example, I listened differently at funerals, and they seemed lament-lite. The absence of lament in our worship services also struck me. I noticed how the majority of songs were celebratory and triumphant. While I have nothing against celebration and pointing people toward hope, the depth of my grief caused me to long for the honest and candid spiritual struggle with pain. Celebration is certainly not wrong, but with a consistent absence of lament, it felt incomplete. Through the years I began to talk about lament. I incorporated it into funeral services. I taught on it in my sermons. The effect was startling. Grieving people came out of the shadows. My life and pastoral ministry involved numerous conversations with hurting people. I began helping people discover how lament invites us to grieve and trust, to struggle and believe. I walked people through their grief by leading them—even encouraging them—to lament. I started to understand at a new level why the Psalms are so helpful to hurting people. I began to see lament as a rich but untapped reservoir of God’s grace. Deep Mercy in Dark Clouds The aim of this book is to help you discover the grace of lament—to encourage you to find deep mercy in dark clouds. The title is taken from two verses in Lamentations that seem to be a paradox. But they aren’t. How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud! (Lam. 2:1) The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. (Lam. 3:22) When the circumstances of life create dark clouds, I hope you’ll come to embrace lament as a divinely given liturgy leading you to mercy. This historic song gives you permission to vocalize your pain as it moves you toward God-centered worship and trust. Lament is how you live between the poles of a hard life and trusting in God’s sovereignty. Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God. Without lament we won’t know how to process pain. Silence, bitterness, and even anger can dominate our spiritual lives instead. Without lament we won’t know how to help people walking through sorrow. Instead, we’ll offer trite solutions, unhelpful comments, or impatient responses. What’s more, without this sacred song of sorrow, we’ll miss the lessons historic laments are intended to teach us. Lament is how Christians grieve. It is how to help hurting people. Lament is how we learn important truths about God and our world. My personal and pastoral experience has convinced me that biblical lament is not only a gift but also a neglected dimension of the Christian life for many twenty-first-century Christians. A broken world and an 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. Christianity suffers when lament is missing. Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 17–19. Check out our Bible Study on Dark Clouds; Deep Mercy. A bible study on the book of Lamentations as well as some Psalms of Lament. These lessons are available on Amazon, as well as a part of Good Questions Have Groups Talking Subscription Service. Like Netflix for Bible Lessons, one low subscription gives you access to all our lessons--thousands of them. For a medium-sized church, lessons are as little as $10 per teacher per year. |
