Sessions Include:

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #1
Life in a Minor Key
Psalm 77

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #2
Bring Your Complaints to God
Psalm 10

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #3
Ask Boldly
Psalm 22

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #4
Choose to Trust
Psalm 13

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #5
Broken World; Holy God
Lamentations 1 - 2

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #6
Hope Springs from Truth Rehearsed
Lamentations 3

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Lesson #7
Unearthing Idols
Lamentations 5

To pray in pain, even with its messy struggle and tough questions, is an act of faith where we open up our hearts to God. Prayerful lament is better than silence. However, I’ve found that many people are afraid of lament. They find it too honest, too open, or too risky. But there’s something far worse: silent despair. Giving God the silent treatment is the ultimate manifestation of unbelief. Despair lives under the hopeless resignation that God doesn’t care, he doesn’t hear, and nothing is ever going to change. People who believe this stop praying. They give up.

However, lament directs our emotions by prayerfully vocalizing our hurt, our questions, and even our doubt. Turning to prayer through lament is one of the deepest and most costly demonstrations of belief in God. James Montgomery Boice (1938–2000), who pastored the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia for thirty-two years, helps us see the spiritual value of praying through our spiritual questions:

It is better to ask them than not to ask them, because asking them sharpens the issue and pushes us toward the right, positive response. Alexander Maclaren writes, “Doubts are better put into plain speech than lying diffused and darkening, like poisonous mists, in [the] heart. A thought, be it good or bad, can be dealt with when it is made articulate.”

I wonder how many believers stop speaking to God about their pain. Disappointed by unanswered prayers or frustrated by out-of-control circumstances, these people wind up in a spiritual desert unable—or refusing—to talk to God.

This silence is a soul killer.

Maybe you are one of those who’ve given God the silent treatment. Maybe you just don’t know what to say. Perhaps there’s a particular issue or struggle that you just can’t talk to God about. It feels too painful. I hope you’ll be encouraged to start praying again. Or perhaps you have a friend who is really struggling in grief. Maybe this person prays some things that make you uncomfortable—even wince. But before you jump in too quickly and hush his or her prayer, remember that at least your friend is praying. It’s a start.

Prayers of lament take faith.

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.

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