February 20

Day 253: The Teardrop in the Midst of the Earthquake

I've dated these posts, not by the number of posts as such, but by the number of days since we first went into Covid lockdown (mid March. This is day 253 of that.) If I was out of town and then returned, I simply did the math to include the absences and then picked up where I had left off. (Not that you were asking.)

I only started doing this, because I was initially wrestling with how to pastor our people when we couldn't really be together. I wanted to continue to serve our church. So I started writing. Daily. My mornings don't start until this is done.

I did something similar years ago when our son first went off to college. I started writing weekly letters to him. When his little sister left to pursue her own adventures some years later, I started writing to her too. Sixteen years later, every Monday, I still do.

So much of what I've written in this blog space in the past year has been complaint. The Bible calls it "lament." The Psalms in particular are the solid repository for lament. King David, for one, was an accomplished, even poetic lamenter. (Look at Psalm 130:1 for an example.)

Laments serve a purpose. Laments seem to start with candor, the emotional responses to the present situation. It follows with a cry, crying out to God, from a place of pain, and for comfort and relief.

This then is followed with complaint, the specifics behind the felt pain. But that same complaint should then lead to commune, communing with God. The circumstances behind the lament should drive us not away from God, but toward Him. (That's faith.)

While any complaint about God is a sin, any complaint to God is called...a psalm. Hence, the Book of Psalms; all written to move the writer closer to God. The God who alone can resolve the reasons for and the repercussions from the lament.

Too often we try to cover up our laments with activity, busyness. Even pastors will speed up ministry activity, like a drug, to dull the internal pain. Perhaps other people will spend, or isolate themselves in order to mask the reasons and expressions of lament.

We tend to see our laments as our laments. Our own reactions to our own hardships. We easily personalize and individualize our troubles. But is there a place where the people of God could be "intercessory lamenters?"

On a snowy Saturday morning, I am pausing to ponder the possibility, even the option that I could learn to be an intercessory lamenter. I want there to be room in my own heart to lament for people in our church and in our city who do not know the ultimate reasons for their hurt, their loss and their complaints.

People's ideas and ideals for a utopian world cannot avoid the reality of pain and loss. There will always be reasons to lament.

We can lament, and we can show others how to lament from the strong position of Jesus in our lives; the finished work of Jesus on our behalf.

He wants to hear our laments. He wants to hear those laments, while we also allow Him to hold us close to His heart. Especially when the noise inside and outside of us seems deafening.

Someone wiser than me said this past week, "God can always hear the teardrop in the midst of an earthquake."