30/11/2025 - Beck Lambert

Lament: “A passionate expression of grief that names what is wrong and anchors it to God’s truth.” Mark Vroegop – Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy

Psalm 23:4 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me.”

The valley is not the destination or dwelling place – it is something to be navigated through

1. Pray your Pain

• Psalm 139:2 “You perceive my thoughts from afar”
• Psalm 139:4 “Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely”
• “When we bring our pain to God, He meets us with His presence, and that changes everything” Karra Eloff
• Psalm 34:18 “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.”
• God already knows your pain, prayer gives Him access to it.

1. Pray the Word

• When you can’t find the words, borrow them from the psalms
• Suggested lament psalms to begin with: Psalm 6, Psalm 13, Psalm 77
• Paul’s example to us:
• Romans 8:35-37 ““Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
• Jesus quoted the psalms through the gospels to express righteous anger, knowledge of his betrayal by Judas, and lament on the cross:
• John 2:14-17 “In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
• John 13:18 “But this is to fulfill this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned against me.’”

1. Practice Gratitude

• The example of Psalm 13 – from a low place to gratitude

Psalm 13

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”

and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for he has been good to me.

• The psalms of lament acknowledge both the pain of life and God’s goodness in the midst of hardship.
• Gratitude doesn’t erase pain — it anchors us to God’s goodness in the middle of it.

1. Practice Community

• Community is God’s gift to lighten the load of grief and pain.
• Community can help you hear God’s voice when you can’t hear it for yourself.
• Community can provide those steady footsteps beside you, helping you to pace yourself as you walk through the valley.
• But…to have community, you must practise community.

Reflection Questions

Where do I default to during times of pain…have I been trying to rush through my pain, or have I been stuck in it?

Where might I be holding something back from God — something I need to name honestly in prayer?

What’s one way I could practise gratitude this week, even in a small way?

(If I’m practising community) How could I lighten the load for someone in my community this week?

(If I’m not practising community) What can I do to change that, knowing community is something I need to be intentional about?

Lamentations 3:15-26

15 He has filled me with bitterness

and given me a bitter cup of sorrow to drink.

16 He has made me chew on gravel.

He has rolled me in the dust.

17 Peace has been stripped away,

and I have forgotten what prosperity is.

18 I cry out, “My splendour is gone!

Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!”

19 The thought of my suffering and homelessness

is bitter beyond words.

20 I will never forget this awful time,

as I grieve over my loss.

21 Yet I still dare to hope

when I remember this:

22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends!

His mercies never cease.

23 Great is his faithfulness;

his mercies begin afresh each morning.

24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;

therefore, I will hope in him!”

25 The Lord is good to those who depend on him,

to those who search for him.

26 So it is good to wait quietly

for salvation from the Lord.