“Lamentation” is not a word that is heard very often. Words like sadness, regret, sorrow, or mourning are far more common. But I wonder if something is not lost in the dismissal of lament from our language and our lives.

The Christian hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” is for me a song of lament. Because of certain associations, it is a song that immediately evokes a sense of grief, and yet it is the sort of mourning for me that is somehow both held and expressed in worship. Whether the Christian story is one you embrace or not, the connection of these two ideas—worship and lamentation—may seem even more foreign than the word itself. What could lament possibly have to do with worship? Surely if not opposites, they are words and postures diametrically opposed. While this may be true in many popular applications, which use the word worship to denote passion for something, worship in the Judeo/Christian vision and experience of the world once considered lamentation a significant element. It is a thought worth considering, particularly on behalf of those who dismiss the possibility of God’s existence out of a conviction that a world of so much pain is incompatible with a God worth loving.

In her honest memoir No More Faking Fine, Esther Fleece admits between court hearings, restraining orders, and the harrowing dynamics of a shattered family that it was shaping her suspicions about God. “I was learning a dangerous lesson: that love can end abruptly, that the support that was there in the past can sometimes be swept up suddenly like a rug under your feet, leaving you stumbling. What’s worse, I couldn’t help but worry if God’s love was like this too.”(1) The book recounts her ability to successfully fake being fine; she went from competent student to accomplished professional, all the while reeling with anxiety and battling debilitating despair. But discovering the language of lament offered a kind of merciful undoing. “A lament saves us from staying stuck in grief and rescues us from a faith based on falsehoods,” she writes. “It was a false belief that told me I would always be incapable of being loved. It was a false belief that led me to believe I was the reason for my parents’ divorce. It was a false belief that told me I would never find my way out of despair… While a lament may not change our circumstances, it will help clear up our misunderstandings about God… A lament is a pathway; it serves a purpose. But a lament denied turns into a lie.”(2) Fleece discovered that the God who not only gives permission to lament but considers it worship was far more capable of reaching a crumbling world of pain than she ever imagined.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Case for Lament →