{"id":14161,"date":"2025-03-09T22:30:57","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T02:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=14161"},"modified":"2025-08-15T23:23:39","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T03:23:39","slug":"laments-for-lent-address-to-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=14161","title":{"rendered":"Laments for Lent – Address to God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Psalm 5:1-3–<\/p>\n

Listen to my words, LORD,
\nconsider my lament.
\nHear my cry for help,
\nmy King and my God,
\nfor to you I pray.<\/p>\n

In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice;
\nin the morning I lay my requests before you
\nand wait expectantly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m writing a series Laments for Lent<\/em>, and each week I will talk about one part of a Lament found in Psalms. I do encourage you to read the entire Psalm – we’re going to focus on one part.<\/p>\n

Here’s an acronym for the form of a Lament:
\nA – Address to God
\nC – Complaint
\nC – Confession of Trust
\nE – Entreaty
\nS – Sureness of Help
\nS – Subsequent Praise<\/p>\n

First, let me say that this is a very loose form – with few of the Laments having all the parts. However, you will find most of the parts in most of the Laments, and usually in that general order. More important is that the form makes a nice pattern for us to use in our prayers.<\/p>\n

This week, we’re looking at the first part of most Laments – the Address to God.<\/p>\n

This beginning doesn’t happen in all the Laments – some go straight to the Complaint. And you will find similar words in Psalms of other types – but this is a common beginning to these Laments where the psalmists are turning to God in a time of trouble.<\/p>\n

The Address to God is what it says it is – telling God you’re here and asking God to hear your prayer. I love the one above from Psalm 5, especially because those are the words of a chorus I’ve sung since high school.<\/p>\n

And when better to come to God than in a time of trouble? As the season of Lent begins, may we purpose in our hearts that the Lord will hear our voice in the morning.<\/p>\n

Here are some more beginnings of Laments. Notice the parallelism we talked about last time.<\/p>\n

Psalm 88:1-2–<\/p>\n

LORD, you are the God who saves me;
\nday and night I cry out to you.
\nMay my prayer come before you;
\nturn your ear to my cry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Psalm 102:1-2–<\/p>\n

Hear my prayer, Lord;
\nlet my cry for help come to you.
\nDo not hide your face from me
\nwhen I am in distress.
\nTurn your ear to me;
\nwhen I call, answer me quickly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[This is the point in writing this post where I broke my left pinky finger and typing got harder. I may rethink this blog series, but want to at least finish this post.]<\/p>\n

Psalms of Repentance have a similar form to Laments, but their address to God usually starts right off asking for mercy.<\/p>\n

Psalm 51:1-3–<\/p>\n

Have mercy on me, O God,
\naccording to your unfailing love;
\naccording to your great compassion,
\nblot out my transgressions.
\nWash away all my iniquity
\nand cleanse me from my sin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Psalm 38:1–<\/p>\n

Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
\nor discipline me in your wrath.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then there are the Laments that address God with a question. I go back and forth between thinking they just went straight to the Complaint and thinking yes, this is a different kind of Address to God.<\/p>\n

Psalm 10:1–<\/p>\n

Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
\nWhy do you hide yourself in times of trouble?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Psalm 13:1–<\/p>\n

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
\nHow long will you hide your face from me?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And of course we can’t leave out this one:
\nPsalm 22:1–<\/p>\n

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
\nWhy are you so far from saving me,
\nso far from my cries of anguish?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So my thoughts about this part of the Lament are these:
\nWe can come before God.
\nWe can come asking for mercy when we don’t feel like we deserve God’s favor.
\nWe can even come to God with our angry questions. (And be sure to read the rest of those Psalms – they don’t end angry.)<\/p>\n

Myself, I’ve gotten a habit of starting my prayers with “Dear Heavenly Father…” Think about mixing it up a little and starting your prayers with an Address to God like one of the ones above<\/p>\n

For an example lament this week, even though I have plenty of questions about the political situation, I’m going to go petty this time with a smaller concern, trying to make the point that we can bring anything to God.<\/p>\n

Have mercy on me, O God,
\naccording to your unfailing love.<\/p>\n

Father, I feel so foolish.
\nI should have paid more attention.
\nI tripped on a crack in the sidewalk
\nand broke my left pinky finger.
\nNow it hurts to type,
\nso my plans for a blog series for Lent,
\ncatching up on posting reviews,
\nposting Sonderbooks25
\nare going to be tougher.
\nFor that matter, even washing dishes
\nand getting dressed
\nhas become tougher.
\nAnd who am I to complain
\nwhen literally any other finger
\nwould have been much worse?<\/p>\n

But Lord Christ, I believe that you have lessons for me
\nwhen I fall on my face.
\nAnd I know<\/em> you have compassion.
\nYou never forgot that I am dust
\nand fallible –
\nbut I have trouble remembering
\nand have now been reminded.<\/p>\n

Jesus, grant me your peace.
\nHoly Spirit grant me healing and grace.
\nI suspect that dealing with my new limitations
\nwill be tougher for me than dealing with pain.
\nGrant me that wisdom
\nand a sense of humor
\nand the joy of letting myself off the hook
\nfor getting quite so much done.<\/p>\n

Lord, I learned that my Mother once broke her left pinky finger, too.
\nAnd she said you don’t really appreciate your left pinky finger
\nuntil it’s hurting.
\nJust like you pointed out
\nthat every member of the body of Christ
\nis important.
\nMay I play my small part
\nand appreciate the other members of the body
\nwho help me out when I’m hurting.<\/p>\n

And may I remember,
\nwhen the splint comes off,
\nto thank you for my left pinky finger
\nand wiggle it with joy!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The above is offered as evidence that when you use the Lament form, the result doesn’t have to be profound!<\/p>\n

I’m hoping next week to talk about Part 2 – the Complaint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psalm 5:1-3– Listen to my words, LORD, consider my lament. Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly. I’m writing a series Laments for Lent, and each week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,62,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-laments","category-laments-for-lent","category-praying-with-the-psalmists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14161"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14170,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14161\/revisions\/14170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}