Dear Faith Family,
Praying lament changes our assumption of what God does and doesn't want to hear from us. I'm indebted to Chaz for pointing this out to me as we reflected on lament over coffee the other day.
If you are like me and many others, then you assume God doesn't want to hear your complaints (what's happening and how it makes you feel). After all, God knows our hearts, and he knows our situation, so why be redundant? No, we think, God wants to hear my prayers of “Help!”, prayers of “Thanks!” for his help, and my "Wow!" at his awesomeness. Indeed, Help Thanks Wow, was the title of the 2012 New York Times best-seller on prayer by Anne Lamott in which she argues that the first cry ("Help!") is the hardest for it admits defeat and requires surrender. Ultimately, isn't that what God is after, our submission?
Listen, Lamott is not far off in capturing the essence of most of our prayers. Nor is she wrong about the essentialness of confessing dependence. Yet, learning how to pray through the psalms of lament--just as Jesus did--teaches us that what we are submitting to is a devoted relationship every bit as intimate as it is salvific.
The truth of our submission is not shocking, but at least to me, its discovery within the school of prayer has been surprising. While we spend most of our prayers telling God what we need and even thanking him for the need met, the "petition" or request in the lament psalms is often the smallest portion.
Take Psalm 22, for example, which we read together on Sunday. In verses 1-18, you won't find a single petition. Instead, you find the psalmist describing "in anguished detail" what is happening to him and how it makes him feel. It is not until you get to verse 19 that a request is made, and even then, the request is simple and straightforward--help, deliver, rescue--and concludes by verse 21. There are no specifics laid out for God to do; rather, the psalmist assumes our Father already knows how he'll help. The remainder of the psalm (vs. 22-31) is an expression of confident trust that comes only after the psalmist's heart is laid bare, and his petition without caveats is voiced.
Tim Mackie, from the Bible Project, comments on the opposing assumption revealed in our prayers of lament. He says,
"The assumption that we have when hardship comes is God already knows what is happening, he already knows how I feel, what I need to do is tell him exactly what he is supposed to do about it...The biblical prayers are quite the opposite...the assumption of [the lament psalms] is that God knows exactly what to do...[and] that what God is most interested in hearing is me describing how I am processing all of what is happening to me and how it's making me feel."
Now that is worthy of a "Wow!" prayer!
Learning to pray and listen to lament trains us to assume that God is interested in us, what is happening in and within our lives. Learning to pray and listen to lament habituates us to assume that God already knows how he will help, and what he desires, is the relational depth of transparency. Learning to pray and listen to lament helps us submit to an intimate relationship with God of the universe, a relationship in which we can rightly assume he intends and will act on our behalf, and therefore a relationship in which we can honestly complain and confidently trust.
My final assumption this morning is that over the coming days and weeks, there will be plenty within our faith family and community voicing Lamott's essential first prayer for "Help!" in the wake of defeat and in light of possible hardships ahead. Might our newly informed assumptions allow us to find and bring peace.
Love you faith family! God bless.