Glorious Weakness By Alia JoySample

The Strength of Lament

I remember reading the book of Ruth as a new Christian, and I came to the verse where Naomi says, “The Lord’s hand has turned against me” (1:13). I thought, You can’t talk to God like that. It seemed blasphemous somehow. Shouldn’t she have been a stronger believer who trusted God even in the face of such loss? Isn’t Naomi being a bad witness to Ruth? Wouldn’t it have been a more powerful story if she was widowed and lost both of her sons and was a destitute foreigner, but she told Ruth not to worry because God was faithful and would provide for them? 

I didn’t understand it then, but years later, when I had endured a different measure of grief, loss, and suffering, I saw something different. I saw a woman who didn’t stop praying even when her words were bitter. I saw a woman who still calls God Yahweh, admitting that He is constant, the great “I Am.” She is achingly honest about her emptiness and need. God wanted her lament to bind her to Him.

What if instead we were a people who learned to lament? Lament isn’t some patch slapped onto hard times to make them more palatable but an admission of our profound weakness and inability to carry a single thing on our own. If my suffering has taught me anything, it is just how bold I can be with God in my distress.

God does not expect us to remain stoic when our hearts are rent. We are not asked to put our masks back on so we don’t embarrass God with our suffering. We are not better Christians when we call the hardest parts of life “good.” But we can learn to call God good in the hardest parts of our lives. Lament says you belong to me, and I belong to you and will enter in with you. It is Ruth linking arms with Naomi and vowing, “Your God will be my God and we’ll make the journey home together.”

Jesus knew what it was to endure someone’s anguish. He knew what it was to see people, to lock eyes on our desperation, to not turn from our sorrow, our despair, or our weakness. He chose humanity for Himself when He walked among us.

Is lamenting a foreign practice to you? Ask God to show you how to lament over any loss, pain, or grief in your own life and in the lives of your neighbors.