Learning to Pray from the Psalms of Lament

by Pastor Paul Dugan

The Psalms provide a “playlist” for all dimensions of the human experience, for all parts of the human soul. This playlist includes a wide variety of genres that help us gather the whole of our lives in honest and grateful prayer before God.

The Oxford Dictionary defines lament as “a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.” Synonyms include: wail, moan, cry, sob, weep, complain, groan, howl.

Psalm 42 is a classic example of a biblical lament:

1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
    so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember
    as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
    under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise
    among the festive throng.

5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

6 My soul is downcast within me;
    therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
    the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
    in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
    have swept over me.  (Psalm 42:1-7)

Lament is by far the most common genre of the Psalter. More psalms fall under the lament category than any other, about 40% of the total.

I find this fascinating- that the largest genre in the “playlist” for the people of God is “The Blues”!  What does this say about the life of faith?  …about the relationship between the people of God and suffering?  …about what it means to be human?   How does this re-define prayer for the contemporary believer?  …for the contemporary church?

In his excellent introduction to the Psalms in The Message, Eugene Peterson helps acclimate us to the raw honesty of the psalms:

“Faced with the prospect of conversation with a holy God who speaks worlds into being, it is not surprising that we have trouble (with prayer). We feel awkward and out of place: “I’m not good enough for this. I’ll wait until I clean up my act and prove that I am a decent person.” Or we excuse ourselves on the grounds that our vocabulary is inadequate: “Give me a few months—or years!—to practice prayers that are polished enough for such a sacred meeting. Then I won’t feel so stuttery and ill at ease.”

My usual response when presented with these difficulties is to put the Psalms in a person’s hand and say, “Go home and pray these… A common response of those who do what I ask is surprise—they don’t expect this kind of thing in the Bible. And then I express surprise at their surprise: “Did you think these would be the prayers of nice people? Did you think the psalmists’ language would be polished and polite?”

Untutored, we tend to think that prayer is what good people do when they are doing their best. It is not. Inexperienced, we suppose that there must be an “insider” language that must be acquired before God takes us seriously in our prayer. There is not. Prayer is elemental, not advanced, language. It is the means by which our language becomes honest, true, and personal in response to God. It is the means by which we get everything in our lives out in the open before God.”

Laments are complaints. These are raw prayers of grievance with God, protesting the experience of suffering, injustice, persecution, and often protesting the hostility of an enemy.

Common aspects of lament psalms include the following:

·      cries for help

·      questions for God,

·      descriptions of trouble (in the present tense), 

·      rememberings of God’s past actions, and

·      vows of praise. 

Key words: “Why…?;  “When…?;  “How long…?; “Where are you…?;  “My enemies…

There are two sub-types of lament in the Psalms: Individual laments focus on my trouble. Communal laments focus on our shared trouble.

Examples of lament psalms: Psalm 5, 6, 12, 13, 17, 22, 25, 26, 28, 31, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 51, 55, 57, 60, 69, 70. 74, 77, 79, 80, 82, 85, 86, 88, 94, 102, 120, 123, 130, 140, 141, 142 and 143.

How to craft your own psalm of lament:

1. Describe your trouble (or your community’s trouble) in detail to God

2. Bring your honest questions to God: "Lord, why….?;  "How long, Lord, before you…?; "Where are you in…?

3. Express your honest emotions to God: "Lord, I am feeling sad about…; "I am feeling angry…; “…afraid…

4. Make your plea to God:   "Please, Lord…; "Remember back when you…

Praying the laments is medicine for the soul. One of the church fathers called it “psalmotherapy.” As I pray these raw, ancient, “unspiritual” prayers, I am praying with a great cloud of witnesses who have prayed them before me over the past 3,000 years. That means I am not alone. And, get this… when I pray the laments I am praying with my Savior. As he embraced the full reality of the human condition, the Lord Jesus Christ took up these grievances before the Father (ex. Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ). The Son of God prays the laments with you! You are not alone in your suffering. Take heart.

Laments as Intercession: But what if you are not currently in a place of lament? You can pray a lament psalm on behalf of others who are in such a place. As I read a lament, I ask myself, ‘Who in our world might be able to identify with these words? - with this pain, suffering, or rejection? - with this sadness, fear, grief, or frustration? - with this ‘God-forsaken-ness’?’ Then I turn the lament psalm into a prayer of intercession. As I pray, the Holy Spirit cultivates in me deeper empathy for other human beings who are in a place of disorientation- whether they be across the street or across the world.