Lamenting with God

Lament: to feel, show, or express grief, sorrow or regret.  To mourn deeply.

                                               www.dictionary.com

There are many psalms of lament.  These are soul searching Psalms such as Psalm 42. The author is clearly in a lot of pain - probably a Gen Xer.  

This comes through in verses 9-10:

       I will say to God, my solid rock,

             “Why have you forgotten me?
         Why do I have to walk around,
         sad, oppressed by enemies?”
¹⁰      With my bones crushed, my foes make fun of me,
             constantly questioning me: “Where’s your God now?”

Clearly, the depth of our anguish can be communicated with God.  While listening to Pandora on Friday, I came across a song I hadn't heard before called Laughing With by Regina Spektor.

Here's the official video:

The song may mean different things to different people but my take is that we don't have the luxury of laughing at God when we are in grave need.  When things are going well, we may not feel a need for spiritual connection with God - we are masters of our domain.

Spirituality can go to the back burner and some can even laugh at the notion of God.

But when we're in the foxhole so to speak, we find that we do need strength from somewhere greater than ourselves.  Like what the Psalmist is looking for.

The song also pokes fun at the hyper-religious who carry around poor theology - seeing God as Santa Claus or seeing people as objects of God's hate.

The people in Woodward, Oklahoma are suffering today.  They have experienced loss in profound ways and no one is laughing at God there tonight.  I'll pray for them and I would invite you to do the same.  When the time is right, we'll go and put feet to our prayers.

Maybe then we can laugh with God together as we see resurrection come out of their cross.  I think I've seen that before - somewhere close.