Category: Praying with the Psalmists

It’s Good Friday. Today I walked among the bluebells in the biggest stand of bluebells on the East Coast at Bull Run Regional Park. And I sang in an amazing Good Friday cantata. My heart is full.

It’s late, but I did want to finish off my Laments for Lent blog series with a post for Good Friday.

Instead of writing my own example lament today, let’s look at the Lament that Jesus quoted on the cross, Psalm 22.

To mix things up, I’m going to quote Wilda C. Gafney’s translation in A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W, where she includes it in the reading for today.

First let me comment that I got some feedback from early readers of my book, Praying with the Psalmists because I included Psalm 22 in the chapter on Laments and not in the chapter on Messianic Psalms. Yes, Psalm 22 is Messianic – Jesus quoted it on the cross and the gospel writers quoted it as being fulfilled by Jesus’ suffering. And people have often made the point that the description fits crucifixion. But I suspect that the psalmist who wrote it was simply writing a lament. It doesn’t come across as trying to predict anything – just someone expressing their pain. And then Jesus cried out with that very Lament.

To me, this reminds us that Jesus was fully human and entered into human suffering. And I do believe God inspired the psalmist so that their words were wiser than they knew.

Psalm 22 has all the parts of a Lament, but doesn’t follow the order strictly.

It starts with one of those Addresses to God that’s a question – which slides immediately into the Complaint:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from my deliverance, from the words of my groaning?

Here’s the beginning of the Complaint:

My God, I cry out by day, and you do not answer;
and by night, and there is found no rest for me.

Then it slips into the Confession of Trust:

Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our mothers and fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you rescued them.
To you they cried, and were freed:
in you they trusted, and they were not put to shame.

But the psalmist wasn’t done with the Complaint:

But I am a worm, and not human;
scorned by humankind, and despised by people.
All who see me mock me;
they flap their lips at me, they shake their heads:
“Commit yourself to the SAVING ONE: let God rescue
and deliver the one in whom God delights!”

Back to the Confession of Trust – instead of finishing one and going on to the next part, this Psalm weaves them back and forth together.

Yet it was you who drew me from the womb;
keeping me safe on my mother’s breast.
On you was I cast from birth,
and since my mother’s womb you have been my God.

Back to the Complaint:

Be not far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is none to help.
Many bulls surround me,
mighty bulls of Bashan encompass me,
like a lion, ravaging and roaring.
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are disjointed.
My heart is like wax;
it is melted within my being.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
in the dust of death you lay me down.
For dogs are all around me;
a conclave of evildoers encircles me.
Like a lion they ravage my hands and feet.
I can count all my bones.
They gloat and stare at me.
They divide my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.

And then! We get to the Entreaty. (Notice how much shorter it is than the Complaint.)

SAVING GOD, be not far away!
My strength, hasten to help me!
Deliver my soul from the sword,
my life from the clutch of the dog!
Save me from the mouth of the lion!

And in this translation, the next line is Sureness of Help:

For on the horns of the wild oxen you have responded to me.

From here on out there’s more back-and-forth, this time between Sureness of Help and Subsequent Praise. This next part is Subsequent Praise:

I will tell of your name to my sisters and brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
You who revere the FOUNT OF LIFE, praise her!
all the offspring of Leah and Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah glorify her.
Stand in awe of her all you of Rebekah’s line.

I’m calling this Sureness of Help:

For she did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;
she did not hide her face from me,
and when I cried to her, she heard.

And really, the rest is Subsequent Praise, though it kind of merges with Sureness of Help. And, in fact, this part talks about a future where God makes things right – and this is the part that makes the strongest case for calling it a Messianic Psalm, even though this part isn’t quoted in the New Testament.

On your account is my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who revere her.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek her shall praise the MOTHER OF ALL.
May your hearts live forever!
All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the WELLSPRING OF LIFE;
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before her.
For sovereignty belongs to the SHE WHO IS HOLY,
and she rules over the nations.
They consume and they bow down, all the fat ones of the earth before her,
they bend their knees, all who go down to the dust,
and cannot save their soul.
Later descendants will serve her;
future generations will be told about our God;
they will go and proclaim her deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that she has done it.

And looking at the Cross from centuries later – we are even more certain that the end result is triumph and praise. Christ’s living the suffering of this Psalm foreshadows that he will also live the triumph of this Psalm, when the poor shall eat and be satisfied and all the families of the nations will worship God with joy, proclaiming God’s deliverance.

Amen. May it be so.

This week in the email newsletter from Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation, they listed this testimony:

I was once invited by a visiting professor at Boston College to write my own psalm of lament. It was an amazing experience as I was going through a very difficult time in my personal life. I often suggest trying it to others who are struggling. The basic structure is to cry out to God, complain, ask for help, express trust, and end with praise and thanksgiving. It can bring great peace.
—Eileen M.

Yes! This is my whole reason for writing this Laments for Lent blog series and my Praying with the Psalmists book and website, prayingwiththepsalmists.com. Praying your own lament, writing your own psalms – those things do your heart so much good! I use the same basic structure she gives, but put it into an acrostic to make it easy to remember:

1. Address to God
2. Complaint
3. Confession of Trust
4. Entreaty
5. Sureness of Help
6. Subsequent Praise

Each week of Lent, we’ve looked at one of the parts of the Lament.

Today is Palm Sunday, the day we celebrate the start of Holy Week – the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and the crowds shouted “Hosanna!” It’s the perfect time to discuss the sixth part of a Lament – Subsequent Praise. Because in so many ways the joy and the cries of “Hosanna!” are looking forward to the day when Christ will indeed be the Ruler of All and make all things right.

This part, I admit, I struggled to make fit the acronym. My Psalms professor’s name for it was “Vow to Praise.” The lovely thing about it is that at the end of most Laments in Psalms, the psalmist takes a moment to talk about how they’re going to praise the Lord after God comes through.

Here are some examples:

Psalm 54:6—

I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you;
I will praise your name, Lord, for it is good.

 
Psalm 61:8—

Then I will ever sing in praise of your name
and fulfill my vows day after day.

 
Psalm 13:6—

I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.

Psalm 79:13—

Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture,
will praise you forever;
from generation to generation
we will proclaim your praise.

I love this part of writing a lament, because it nudges me to turn toward hope. Taking a moment to visualize how much joy I’ll have when God answers my prayer puts a shot of joy into a tough situation.

Each week I’m also writing an example lament to show you how easy it is to use the form to pray your own lament. This week, I’ll be praying for my best friend Kathe who lost her husband Joe to a heart attack this week.

A Lament for my Friend

Father, I come before you for Kathe and her kids,
holding my friend in your light.

She and Joe married so young –
she was 18, he was 20 –
they’ve shared their whole lives together.

Theirs wasn’t a perfect marriage;
they had their bumpy spots and their annoyances with each other –
but it was a committed marriage –
they stuck it out –
and were there for each other for 44 years.

Looking at the pictures of Joe
as they grew and changed over the years –
I realize how much I’m going to miss him, too.
He saw the funny side of everything,
that came from keen insight.
He pointed out things to think about,
always with humor.

And he was kind.
He cared about people.
A steady presence in my friend’s life
who always made me smile.

Even moments before his last heart attack,
he phoned Kathe that he’d be fine,
that the store personnel called 911 just as a precaution,
and she shouldn’t worry about him.

But for Kathe and their young adult kids
there’s going to be a tremendous gap in their lives.

But Father, you spared Joe’s life many times;
His first heart attack happened decades before.
We’re so thankful for the many years they had together
helping and nurturing their kids to adulthood.

And we are sure Joe is now in heaven with you,
making the angels laugh.
On earth we’ll miss him,
but thank you for the way he brightened the world
while he was here.

Now I ask you to hold Kathe and their kids
close to your heart.
Gently lead them like a shepherd.
Comfort and sustain them
through the valley of the shadow of death.
May they know
you are with them.

And Glory of the Heavens,
there will be a time of unimaginable joy
when Kathe and Joe are reunited
and the best parts of their souls,
the parts that reflect you most,
are what will remain and endure
for an eternity of joy.

***

As every other week, let me urge you to try writing a lament, too.

[Who will be the first in this series to paste their own example into the comments to let me know somebody’s trying it out? You won’t be the very first reader psalm in the comments, but the first in this series. Try it!]

Today is the fifth Sunday of Lent, so I’m going to talk about the fifth part of a Lament – Sureness of Help.

I’ve been praying example laments each week of Lent, trying to demonstrate that we can use the form of a Lament found in Psalms to pray our own prayers and bring our own requests before God.

This year, I’ve mostly been praying about current events, because I’m upset about the way things in our country are going. But this week, I finished up three months of my firstborn living with me after almost twenty years living on her own. She’s been out of work for years, pretty much since she came out as transgender, and is doing a reset, alternating time between her dad and me. I’m super hopeful that the reset time so far has been helpful and that she’s going to be able to land a job and save money to get out on her own again. I’m super hopeful, but she’s also very much on my heart.

To review, the parts of a Lament are:

1. Address to God
2. Complaint
3. Confession of Trust
4. Entreaty
5. Sureness of Help
6. Subsequent Praise

The “Sureness of Help” section is my attempt at an “S” name for the section where the psalmist expresses confidence that God is going to answer. Here are some examples from Psalms:

Psalm 54:7—

You have delivered me from all my troubles,
and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes.

 
Psalm 85:12—

The Lord will indeed give what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.

 
Psalm 59:17—

But I will sing of your strength,
in the morning I will sing of your love;
for you are my fortress,
my refuge in times of trouble.

Psalm 3:8—

From the Lord comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people.

Sometimes, I’m not sure that God will actually answer my prayer precisely the way I want God to – so I try to focus on what I am sure about – at the very least, I’m sure that God hears my prayer and God cares. When I’m talking about big justice issues, I do believe that the arc of the universe tends toward justice – eventually. When it comes to my kid – well, you’ll see.

So here’s a Prayer for My Daughter

Lord, hear my prayer;
Shepherd, listen to my heart.
I come before you on behalf of my child,
whom you love even more than I do.

She’s been out of work for many years,
and you know the obstacles she’s faced.
You know the challenges
that get bigger with every month “empty” on a resume.

You know how our society isn’t kind
to anyone out of work for any length of time.
You know how we heap shame on the unemployed
in a way that makes it that much harder to change anything.

But Creator and Sustainer,
from birth she was a joy and delight.
Such a sunny spirit! A unique person
walking to the beat of her own drum,
brilliant, gifted, opinionated.

It was easy to remember how lovable
and clever and kind she is.
And how much joy to get to be around her again!
And I know and believe that You love her even more than I do
and crafted her with those unique gifts.

Now, Father and Mother of all,
I ask that you would make her way smooth.
She’s got a list of places she’s going to look for work
while staying with her dad.
My prayer is that the obstacles in her way would be softened,
that you would send your angels to lead her
to a job that’s right for her at this time.
I pray that you would encourage her heart
and help her efforts to bear fruit.

What am I sure of, Lord?
That you love her more than I do.
That you hear my prayer.
That you created her a masterpiece.
And that you will guide her in her next steps.

And some day, when I go to visit her in Portland,
in a place she’s paying for with her own earnings.
we will rejoice together.
And thank you for how far she’s come.

***

Do you have someone you want to pray for? Try writing a lament. If you paste your own example into the comments, I promise to pray with you.

It’s the fourth Sunday of Lent today, so I’m going to talk about the fourth part of a Lament, the Entreaty.

What struck me as I looked at Laments in Psalms was that usually the psalmists are more specific in the Complaint part – telling God what’s wrong – than they are in the Entreaty part – asking God to act, rather than telling God what to do.

This is kind of the opposite of how I was taught to pray. I remember being told more than once to pray specific prayers so you could tell when God answered. But that’s not really what the psalmists do.

Mind you, they are specific about what’s wrong and about their needs. But they seem to trust God with how to solve the problems.

Here are a few examples:

Psalm 10:12—

Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.

Psalm 35:22-23—

Lord, you have seen this; do not be silent.
Do not be far from me, Lord.
Awake, and rise to my defense!
Contend for me, my God and Lord.

Psalm 80:19—

Restore us, Lord God Almighty;
make your face shine on us,
that we may be saved.

Since I’ve been studying Psalms, I’ve started trying to pray this way, trying to leave the solution up to God.

In this week’s example lament, I’m going to pray about our government, using as my Entreaty five prayer requests I’ve been praying since last year, when so many valuable government programs were being cut and innocent people were being thrown into prison and so many other terrible things were happening.

I’ll include the other parts of a lament as well. To review, those are:

1. Address to God
2. Complaint
3. Confession of Trust
4. Entreaty
5. Sureness of Help
6. Subsequent Praise

Here’s a Lament for Leadership:

O Creator of all people, hear my prayer.
O great Peacemaker, listen to my cry.

Our government is actively harming people,
bombing an elementary school,
firing at fishing vessels and ships that were not attacking,
and leaving survivors to drown.
Masked supposedly government agents
are attacking people without warrants
and shooting innocent observers.

And our government is shutting down good things it was doing –
USAID programs that helped save lives,
firing government workers whose work made a difference
fighting cancer and other diseases,
doing unheralded work that made everyone’s lives better.

And I don’t know the half of what’s going on.
I don’t see the lives that have been affected by the new policies.

But Creator of all, you see the sparrow fall,
and you know the number of hairs on each head.
You see the devastation
and you care about our wounds and our griefs.

Comforter and Shepherd, we pray for the people harmed and being harmed
in any way by our government.
Let that harm be quickly mitigated.

Lord of hosts, we pray for the forces of good that have been stopped
that they would be restarted and revitalized.

God of our fathers and mothers, we pray that the Constitution
and the rule of law would be upheld.

Lord our Shield, we pray
that you would protect us all from further harm.

And finally, Light of the World,
we ask that evil actions by government officials
would come to light and be called to account.

O Judge of the Earth,
we do know that justice will come in the end
– may it be soon!

And may we sing for joy
with each victory of justice,
when things are put back together better
as will surely some day happen.

Show us that you care, Father of all;
let us see justice come, Lord of the universe.

Amen.

It was warm today – at last – so I’m starting this post with a picture of last year’s cherry blossoms.

In my Laments for Lent series, my plan is to each week talk about a different part of the Lament form, then write an example lament. Unfortunately, this year, I’m easily finding current events to write laments about. In fact, I mentioned that to my (adult) kid who is temporarily staying with me, and they said that at this rate, I can go on to write Jeremiads for June! (Hey, it made me laugh.)

The form of a Lament is:

1. Address to God
2. Complaint
3. Confession of Trust
4. Entreaty
5. Sureness of Help
6. Subsequent Praise

The Confession of Trust comes after we’ve expressed ourselves, when we step back and remind ourselves that there’s a reason we’re coming to God with this mess, because we do trust God. It’s often short and sweet, but a reminder that we do believe God sees.

Here are a couple of examples:

Psalm 54:4–

Surely God is my help;
the Lord is the one who sustains me.

Psalm 86:15–

But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

This week, I’m going to write a Lament for War:

O God, why do the nations rage,
and the peoples plot against each other?
Shepherd of the world, hear us
as we cry out to you!

O Sovereign over all of us,
the leaders of our own country
have chosen violence in place of peace.
When negotiations were having an effect
they chose to attack.
A ship that had gone to participate in a naval exercise in good faith
was blown out of the water,
with no one staying to rescue the survivors,
despite the Geneva Convention.
A girls’ school was “accidentally” targeted –
was AI involved? –
and over a hundred children killed.
Desalination plants have been targeted,
destroying clean water resources for millions of people.
The leaders of our country have boasted
about raining down death and destruction.
Once upon a time,
I thought we were the good guys.
I’m standing horrified
at the thought of all the innocent lives lost
because of the actions of people
wearing the flag of my country.
As well as the repercussions that are sure to hit
in the form of terrorism,
high prices,
and other impacts I don’t even want to imagine.
I’m avoiding war news
because it turns my stomach.
How privileged am I that I can do that?
I don’t even know how to pray,
so let me at least acknowledge this situation is a horror and a travesty
and a reviving of violence
where there could have been peace.

Almighty God, you are the Prince of Peace
and you bless the peacemakers.
You see the sparrow fall
and you know the name of each injured child.

Lord God, be a shelter for everyone in danger.
Let peacemakers rise up,
and let men of violence be thwarted.
Let the arrogant be humbled,
and let this horrible example
result in the world working together
to heal and restore.

Somehow, somewhere, sometime,
let there be peace on earth.

And we do believe the day will come
when the lion will lie down with the lamb,
and the child will put their hand into a viper’s nest,
and they will neither harm nor destroy
on all your holy mountain.

And great will be our rejoicing
with every example of peace overcoming evil.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Lord, how many are my foes!
How many rise up against me!
Many are saying of me,
“God will not deliver him.”

–Psalm 3:1-2

It’s Week 2 of Lent, so I’m going to talk about the second part of the Lament, the Complaint.

Here’s a bit from my book about the Complaint:

The Complaint is in every Lament, and its presence marks the Psalm as a Lament. And the psalmists don’t hold back. They pour out their hearts before the Lord. Usually, this section is the longest of all the parts of a Lament, going into great detail about all the trouble. In fact, a lot of Psalms sound like the psalmist is overreacting. If I were their friend, in many cases I’d probably try to tell them to calm down.

But if the psalmists do it, overreacting to God in prayer must be okay. If catastrophic thoughts are going through your head, don’t be afraid to express them to God.

I’ve decided that this year, I’m mostly going to pray about current events in my example laments. I should probably pray about war today, but I was already planning to pray about justice for immigrants – because I went to an Interfaith Prayer Vigil this week for Immigrant Justice. I wish I could even keep track of all the things that need prayer.

So let me get right to the lament. Again, I offer these as examples of how we can pray, using the patterns from Psalms.

Here again are the parts of a Lament:

1. Address to God
2. Complaint
3. Confession of Trust
4. Entreaty
5. Sureness of Help
6. Subsequent Praise

A Lament for Immigrant Justice

Father of all people,
Creator of all earth’s diversity,
we come before you with sadness
and ask you to hear our prayer.

Once America was known for gladly taking
the tired, the poor,
the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Once we asked other nations to send us
the homeless and tempest-tost.
So many of our own ancestors came
seeking a better life
or fleeing religious persecution.

Now they’ve closed immigration down to many countries,
and are hassling even vacationers if they find any manufactured problem.
They’re arresting people without due process,
if they don’t like the color of their skin or their accent,
without checking their status or believing their protestations.
Citizens have been held in horrible conditions
and so have law-abiding immigrants who were contributing to our country’s well-being.
A blind man was left to freeze to death
after being wrongfully detained.
A child in a bunny hat
was locked in prison.
People legally observing ICE activities
were shot and killed.
And those are only things I know about.
They’re also not allowing legal inspections
and keeping clergy from ministering to people who have been detained.

It’s all lawless and evil
and the opposite of how you told us
to treat the alien and the stranger among us.

O Creator who sees a sparrow fall,
how much more do you see your children?
You don’t lose people in those concentration camps;
you see the injustice done to each one.
You are with each person
now struck with fear from the rampaging secret police
who think they act with impunity.

Call them to account, O God!
Watch over your children.
Motivate your people,
show us how to stop the injustice.
Turn our system around
to bring the vulnerable freedom rather than incarceration
and hope in place of fear.
Reach out your hand to help each one
wrongfully targeted.
Bring mothers and fathers back to their children,
and bring our neighbors back to their homes.

Tear down the concentration camps,
and let all the plans against your children be destroyed.

God who brought your people out of slavery in Egypt,
open the prison doors through your might.

We believe that your hand is in history
– may we see the evidence soon.
“Break the arm [of power] of the wicked and evil man;
call him to account for his wickedness,
that would not be found out.”

And when ICE is abolished
and the concentration camps destroyed,
let’s throw a party with our immigrant neighbors,
eat unfamiliar foods,
and praise your name.

***
Okay, that’s my offering this week. Again let me say that I offer these examples partly to show that you don’t have to be eloquent! But praying through the form does help me think of something to pray when I feel at a loss about a problem much bigger than what I can deal with.

Lent has begun!

As I did last year, I’m going to write a blog series called Laments for Lent, in preparation for writing a book with the same name, a follow-up to my book and website Praying with the Psalmists.

I know, it’s been a year, and the book isn’t written yet. But that gives us an opportunity to walk through the process of writing a lament. In the book, I’ll have a 40-day reading plan for the Laments and Psalms of Confession in Psalms. (Or try my 6-week reading plan for reading all the Psalms.) Each week, we’ll focus on one of the six parts of a Lament.

I made an acronym for the parts of a Lament:

A – Address to God
C – Complaint
C – Confession of Trust
E – Entreaty
S – Sureness of Help
S – Subsequent Praise

This week, let’s talk about the Address to God.

I usually focus on the straightforward ones that essentially say, “Here I am, Lord; please listen to my prayer.” Today I feel like looking at the ones that start with a question.

Psalm 10:1–

Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

Psalm 13:1–

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?

Psalm 22:1–

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?

Here’s a bit from Praying with the Psalmists:

A common thread in all the Laments is that even in deep distress, the psalmist turns to the Lord for help. The Address to God simply says, Lord, I’m turning to you; please hear my prayer.

Even when the psalmists start with a question, at least they’re bringing their pain to God.

My plan is to write an example lament each week of Lent. Phooey, it doesn’t have to be an example. It’s a lament from my heart – and I post it to encourage others to write laments, too. (Post in the comments!)

There are a lot of things I could write a lament about. But today on my heart is the Epstein child sex trafficking ring. (I read Virginia Guiffre’s book, and it is all so horrifying.)

A Lament for Children Abused

Father, why have so many children suffered
at the hands of rich and powerful men?
How have they escaped justice
for so many years?
Mother of All, can you see the wounds
in those now-grown children’s hearts?

“Why does the evil man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
‘he won’t call me to account’?”

Lord God, thousands of children were raped,
abused, sold to others, and terrorized.
And even now the powerful people responsible
are being sheltered,
are being protected,
as if crimes against these girls don’t count
because those who are rich
can do whatever pleases them.

“But you, God, do see trouble and grief;
you consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits herself to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.”

God, if Abel’s blood cried out to you,
if you see a sparrow fall,
then surely you know the names of every victim
and you know every scar on their bodies and their hearts.

O Defender of the Oppressed,
may there be a great accounting.
May what was whispered in the dark
be proclaimed from the housetop.
May evil actions be fully exposed
and called to account.
May the days of harming others with impunity
come to an end.

“Break the arm of the wicked and evil man!
Call him to account for his wickedness,
that would not be found out.”

May the metaphorical arm of power coming from wicked people
be utterly shattered, Lord God Almighty.

Father, we do know their day is coming.
The rumblings have started,
the evil schemes are unraveling.
We know that ultimately justice belongs to you,
Defender of the Helpless.

And we will rejoice
when the oppressed find justice.
We will delight when victims get
to see their oppressors face judgment.
We will praise your name forever,
Avenger of the Innocent.