Psalm 13:1-6 1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? 3 Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; 4 my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall. 5 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. 6 I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.
Our lament can become an offering to God if we will let God be the Lord of our Lament. And God can do something with the offering of our lament that becomes a testimony much bigger than our personal trial.
Allow me to give you four steps to allowing God to be the Lord of your lament.
- Acknowledge your feelings. Acknowledge your feelings but don’t be ruled by them. Acknowledge your feelings but don’t give them authority in your life. Feelings aren’t facts. Feelings are feelings. They are one way we process, but not the only way we should process. Just because you feel one way about something you are going through doesn’t mean that is the way it really is.
- Ask for enlightenment. In verse 3 the Psalmist asked for God to give light to his eyes. He was asking for a perspective that would inform his feelings. He was asking for understanding about what he was dealing with. He was bringing faith into the equation along with his feelings. Move as quickly to the enlightenment phase by asking God to enter into your emotional crises.
- Anchor yourself to the love of God. You are going to learn more about the love of God during times of lament than you will when you are on the mountaintop and all is well. You don’t know how deep the love of God is until it has met you at your lowest point. No matter what you are feeling, God has NEVER stopped loving you, and He is your portion which means He is enough to get you through your time of lament if you will allow Him to.
Adore God for who He is and has been.
There is something about meditating on the love of God that leads us to worship and adoration. It moves us to thank and praise Him and to extol His name. Did you know you can lament and worship at the same time? You can sorrow and sing at the same time?
Maybe life right now isn’t the way you pictured it. Maybe you are in a place you could never have imagined. Hold on to the love of God. Wait for His will to be revealed in your life. Praise Him as you work through your feelings. Allow God to draw even closer to you.
Pastor Melissa
Rev. Dr. Melissa Pratt
Teays Valley Church of God
6979 Teays Valley Road
Scott Depot, WV 25560
304-757-9222
