Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament

by Mark Vroegop

Finding an explanation or a quick solution for grief, while an admirable goal, can circumvent the opportunity afforded in lament—to give a person permission to wrestle with sorrow instead of rushing to end it. Walking through sorrow without understanding and embracing the God-given song of lament can stunt the grieving process.

The absence of lament in our worship services also struck me. I noticed how the majority of songs were celebratory and triumphant. While I have nothing against celebration and pointing people toward hope, the depth of my grief caused me to long for the honest and candid spiritual struggle with pain. Celebration is certainly not wrong, but with a consistent absence of lament, it felt incomplete.

Lament is how you live between the poles of a hard life and trusting in God’s sovereignty. Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God. Without lament we won’t know how to process pain. Silence, bitterness, and even anger can dominate our spiritual lives instead. Without lament we won’t know how to help people walking through sorrow. Instead, we’ll offer trite solutions, unhelpful comments, or impatient responses. What’s more, without this sacred song of sorrow, we’ll miss the lessons historic laments are intended to teach us.

There is deep mercy under dark clouds when we discover the grace of lament.

The practice of lament—the kind that is biblical, honest, and redemptive—is not as natural for us, because every lament is a prayer. A statement of faith. Lament is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God’s goodness.

Christians affirm that the world is broken, God is powerful, and he will be faithful. Therefore, lament stands in the gap between pain and promise.

Lament can be defined as a loud cry, a howl, or a passionate expression of grief. However, in the Bible lament is more than sorrow or talking about sadness. It is more than walking through the stages of grief. Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust. Throughout the Scriptures, lament gives voice to the strong emotions that believers feel because of suffering. It wrestles with the struggles that surface. Lament typically asks at least two questions: (1) “Where are you, God?” (2) “If you love me, why is this happening?”

You might think lament is the opposite of praise. It isn’t. Instead, lament is a path to praise as we are led through our brokenness and disappointment.6 The space between brokenness and God’s mercy is where this song is sung. Think of lament as the transition between pain and promise. It is the path from heartbreak to hope.

Lament invites us to turn our gaze from the rubble of life to the Redeemer of every hurt. It calls us to turn toward promise while still in pain.

It takes faith to pray a lament. 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.

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.

This is where the have lived for quite awhile...I just couldn’t put words to it.

Turning to prayer through lament is one of the deepest and most costly demonstrations of belief in God.

Honestly praying this way recognizes that pain and suffering often create difficult emotions that are not based upon truth but feel true, nonetheless.

Lament is how we learn to live between the poles of a hard life and God’s goodness. It is an opportunity to remind our hearts about God’s faithfulness in the past, especially when the immediate events of life are overwhelmingly negative. While we’re still in pain, lament reminds our hearts of what we believe to be true.

It takes faith to pray when you are in pain. Belief in God creates challenging questions, and lament provides the opportunity to reorient your hurting heart toward what is true. But in order for that to happen, you have to turn to prayer. The silent treatment must end. Frustration and discouragement might tempt you to stop talking to God. Lament opens a door and shows you a path toward trust. Heartfelt cries of lament are often brief or messy. They might feel a bit forced or uncomfortable. But keep talking to God. Don’t allow your fear, your despair, or your track record of silence to cut off the flow of grace. Your pain can be a path toward God if you’ll allow lament to be your new language.

Lament is the language of a people who believe in God’s sovereignty but live in a world with tragedy.

why questions are not always answered before we move into requests. Just as one heavenly body moves into the shadow of another during an eclipse, so too the why questions and the who questions coexist, but not equally.1 Who God is becomes the more prominent reality while not removing the lingering questions. As we make our bold requests, “Why is this happening?” moves into the shadow of “Who is God?”

In my study of lament, I’ve come to love the word yet. It marks the place in the journey where pain and belief coexist. It is how we gain the confidence to ask boldly, despite the sorrow and grief we feel. Yet means that I choose to keep asking God for help, to cry out to him for my needs, even when the pain of life is raw. Yet reminds us that sorrow doesn’t have to yield before we ask God for help. Part of the grace of lament is the way it invites us to pray boldly even when we are bruised badly.

We pray differently when we’re hurting and desperate. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Pain has a way of awakening us to our need for God’s help. It shines a spotlight on our powerlessness to control everything. We are never more aware of our frailty than when hardship comes our way. This is one of the blessings of suffering if we allow lament to lead us. The various trials of life can become a platform to reaffirm our dependence upon the Lord.

By asking God for help, we are not only marshaling the resources of an omnipotent God; we are also reminding our hearts that God can be trusted.

Lament gives us language for talking to God about unfairness, abuse, and hidden mistreatment. We can boldly call upon God to act for the sake of justice.

Lament is how we endure. It is how we trust. It is how we wait. Rebekah Eklund provides this helpful summary: “The prayer of lament rejoices in God’s saving actions in the now and hopes urgently for God’s saving actions in the future, the ‘not yet’ of the eschatological timeline. . . . Those who lament stand on the boundary between the old age and the new and hope for things unseen.”7

being a follower of Jesus requires that we walk through life in continual trust. Seasons of suffering are no different. They are just harder and more intense. The stakes are higher and the emotions more raw. But trusting is still how we live.

We know that the ultimate lament cry—“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1)—led to the greatest moment of redemption. The darkness of the sixth hour led to the dawn of the empty tomb. Jesus’s life of lament led to salvation and eternal life. We know the full story of salvation.

Lament is how you live between a hard life and God’s promises. It is how we learn to sing and worship when suffering comes our way.

“Keep trusting the One who keeps you trusting.”

“Lord, I’m trusting you to keep me trusting.” And that is where God designed lament to lead. Through turning to God in prayer, laying out our complaints, and asking boldly for God’s help, we are led to place our trust in a God who cares for us and hears us. Learning to lament gives us the grace to keep trusting.

Life is full of vexing questions related to God’s purposes. Pain often highlights perplexing paradoxes. Lament is expressed even though the tension remains. It turns to God in prayer, vocalizes the complaint, asks boldly, and chooses to trust while uncertainty hangs in the air. Lament doesn’t wait for resolution. It gives voice to the tough questions before the final chapter is written. Lament is a journey through the shock and awe of pain.

God is long-suffering and merciful, but rebellion against his rule has consequences.

More than just providing comfort and help in our times of sorrow, the grace of lament helps tune our hearts to the pain of others and to the foundational truths about God and the world. We can lament on behalf of our culture, identifying with the brokenness around us. When leaders fall, scandals shock, or unrighteousness reigns, we have a prayer language to embrace the disappointment instead of casting judgment. I recently heard Mark Dever say, “We watch the news so we know how to pray.”7 So true. But perhaps we could also say, “We watch the news so we know how to lament.” I hope your heart will be awakened to hear the “groan” of the creation. Lament gives you eyes to see the brokenness around you.

lament helps us to rehearse biblical truth so hope will return. Despite what you see, despite what you feel, despite what you think, lament can be a supply of grace as you affirm that God’s mercies are new every day.

Lament dares to hope while life is hard.

Lament is a prayer of faith despite your fear.

Lamentations shows us that hope does not come from a change of circumstances. Rather, it comes from what you know to be true despite the situation in front of you. In other words, you live through suffering by what you believe, not by what you see

Lament can help you by rehearsing the truth of the Bible—to preach to your heart, to interpret pain through the lens of God’s character and his ultimate mercy.

God supplies the mercy and grace we need every day. We endure because divine mercy is never exhausted. That’s a promise we must believe.

our hope is not in a change of circumstances but in the promise of a God who never stops being merciful—even when dark clouds loom. His mercy never ceases.

“Despite what I see, despite what I feel, God is good.”

Lament is the language that calls us, as exiles, to uncurl our fingers from our objects of trust.

Hardship reveals idols.

In the Bible an idol is simply an object of trust that takes the emotional and practical place of God.

Lament reminds us about the danger of putting too much hope in human leaders. The book of Lamentations warns us that our deliverer does not occupy a seat on the Supreme Court, reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, sit in the boardroom of a company, or stand behind a pulpit in our church. Seasons of uncertainty and loss reveal the vanity of putting our ultimate hope in anyone but God.

So let us lament the millions of children who were never born. Let us lament the shedding of innocent blood in our land. Let us lament the moment when a mother decides that her body is more valuable than a baby’s body. Let us lament the trafficking of convenience, expediency, and even the body parts of aborted children. Let us lament the “spin” language that makes abortion pro-choice. Let us lament the pain and regret that some have to battle every day. Let us lament a culture for which this issue has become far too common and much too tolerable.

Rather than holding the groan of our culture at a distance or ignoring it altogether, lament has the potential to open our hearts to enter into the pain. It can topple the idol of wanting to live in Mayberry, an idealistic world insulated from the problems around us. What are the cultural issues you tend to ignore? Perhaps you can take a few minutes in your next prayer time to join the groans of your neighbors or your city. Talk to God about the challenges of generational poverty, divorce, teen pregnancy, racism, unemployment, drug addiction, and any other social ill you can remember. As you read or watch the news, let it move you to lament rather than despair or disgust. Allow lament to soften your heart to the problems around you. Lament calls us not to ignore the cries of our culture.

Lament shows us how to think and what to pray when our idols become clear.

When brokenness becomes your life, lament helps you turn to God. It lifts your head and turns your tear-filled eyes toward the only hope you have: God’s grace. I hope you are encouraged by this.

instead of running from the shame of sorrow, lament embraces it. Lament looks through the fog for the grace of God’s remembrance.

Lamentations shows us that God’s sovereignty and his reign are not negated by suffering. God is still in control, even through loss. Lament affirms God’s sovereignty when dark clouds linger.

when we struggle under the weight of hard circumstances, we need to remind our hearts that God reigned through the cross.

The sorrow of loss can lead us to the man of sorrows because Jesus is the answer to the cause of every pain. Every sorrow, every tear, and every loss gives evidence of the brokenness caused by sin. Something is terribly wrong with our culture and inside of us. Christians know that sin creates the pain behind lament.