A Word from Pastor Lisa: Crying out to God

 
Savage, Augusta, 1892-1962. Lift Every Voice and Sing, or, The Harp, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56240 [retrieved July 21, 2021]. Original source: https://books.google.com/books?id=5VoEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+crisis+magazine+1939&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiy8rT1_d_QAhVL8WMKHWw1AKA4ChDoAQgZMAA#v=onepage&q&f=false.
 

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?

– Psalm 42:1-4 (NRSV)

As we walk the second marathon of this pandemic, life isn’t getting easier. We have pent-up grief, anxiety, and exhaustion that overwhelm us. When our souls are parched and thirsty for God, one place we can turn in Scripture is to the Psalms of Lament. We can see how faithful people have cried out to God over the centuries and make their cries our own. Here are a few examples you might try:

The psalms reveal the anatomy of our souls. I wonder about the make-up of your soul right now. We are complex people with a range of emotions and needs. The psalms speak of trust, give comfort, cry out to God, shout praise, confess sins, make testimony, and even argue. Why not try to put our own feelings of hurt and hope into words?

I want to encourage you in the next week to compose your own psalm of lament. Here are some tips:

1. Explore other psalms of lament to understand their structure.

  • Address or Invocation: Most psalms begin by calling upon or crying out out God. We learn something more about who God is.

  • Lament or Complaint: The psalmist does not hold back, sharing pain, suffering, and complaints before God. Here the deepest pain is revealed.

  • Petition: The psalmist seeks God’s help and deliverance from the difficult situation.

  • Confidence/Praise: The psalmist expresses faith in God, despite the hard circumstances. The psalmist remembers God’s past deliverance and looks forward to God’s future salvation. Sometimes the psalm even ends on a note of praise.

2. Write your psalm with candor and honesty. Be authentic and vulnerable before God. Freely express your emotions.

3. Write poetry, not prose. Focus on metaphor, figurative and even exaggerated speech. Write in verse, not in paragraphs.

4. Share your work with someone you trust. If it feels too private, then share it with God.

May the journey of exploring lament psalms and writing your own bring you to a place of deeper trust in the God who walks with you always.

BlogKatelyn HlavatyPsalm, Prayer, Praise