Make Way for Lament

Michael Gungor:

There is a tension to the Kingdom of Heaven that is here but not yet here. That tension ought to give way to poetry. To lament. To art. Sure, there is room for some celebration, but if our faith has nothing else to it than positive messages and encouraging clichés, perhaps it has become a Band-Aid rather than a surgery.

Worship music doesn’t need to be medication. Our worship music ought to put us in touch with the deepest places of our humanity, not simply distract us from our pain and put is in a good mood for the preacher’s talk. It ought to stir things deep in us. Hope. Joy. Anger. Mourning. Doubt. Love.

Have you ever had a relationship that never can get past the surface of things? A relationship where the people never talk about anything deeper than the weather or favorite sports teams is not a very deep relationship. The people in a relationship that have never had any disagreements or conflict are those who have kept their true hearts hidden from one another. A Christianity that does not lament is a shallow Christianity. It is a medicinal, numbing balm that we use to avoid living life in a world that is groaning. It is a Band-Aid to cover our wounds. Fig leaves to be sewn over our humanness. And many of us need to be saved from our addiction to this anemic, shallow substitute for Christianity.

Read the rest and then go buy his music.

Psalm 42

This is powerful.  Get the track here.



(HT: Dane Ortlund)

In the wrong place emotionally? Memorize a Psalm

Chris Brauns:

Psalms are poetry. This means that they are truth to be experienced. The idea with poetry is not that we simply learn objective truth. Rather, poetry, particularly in the case of the Word of God, transports us through an experience.

You might respond, “Well, when I read Psalms, it doesn’t make that much of a difference.”

We cannot experience poetry with a quick read. Rather, we need to hear the Words – - to reflect on them – - to prayerfully take in delight at pondering the images. There is no better way to accomplish this than through memorization.

Read the rest. Helpful.

A Breakdown of Psalm 3

Justin Buzzard with a great reflection on Psalm 3.  I needed to read this today. 

Three Reflections on Prayer in the Psalms

Professor Barrs also gave us some brief thoughts about prayer from the Psalms.

1. The Psalms are so helpful since they teach us we can tell God anything we like. Psalm 10, for example, starts with a complaint. This challenges us to set aside pretension and tell God exactly how we feel.

2. It is rare to hear this, but Jerram said that he likes the imprecatory Psalms. He said there are people that we should want to see judged if God does not save them. The fully sanctified saints in the book of Revelation are asking and longing for for God to judge the wicked.

Ponder the amount of sexual slavery in the world today. 50,000 women alone are brought into the US every year against their will to be sexual objects. This is truly a wicked reality. Those who enable and structure their lives around this should be judged. We should pray that God would stop this wickedness through his judgment on those who perpetrate it. The Psalms show us that we should be free to pray for God’s judgment AND for his conversion of sinners.

3. The Psalms give us wonderful words of praise and lament that can be used when we don’t have any words to say. Use the script of the Psalms for your praying.