Saturday Scripture | A Psalm of Lament

Good glorious morning!

The heat and humidity have lessened their stranglehold on North Texas. I’m sitting on our patio, drinking coffee, prayerfully immersed in the Word, music playing in the background. It promises to be a beautiful Saturday.

As I may have mentioned in a previous post or two, I’ve been contemplating the vitality of lament in our modern American society.

Lament

Expressing sadness and regret about something.

Lament is an intrinsic part of worship, that can come in either individual or communal forms.

At its core, lament is a profound expression of our faith as we experience pain, sorrow, and confusion.

Our lament reflects our trust in God’s sovereignty, acknowledging His power to comfort, heal, and eventually bring redemption from our trials.

For the choir director: A psalm of David, to be accompanied by an eight-stringed instrument.

¹ O Lord, don’t rebuke me in your anger
    or discipline me in your rage.
² Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak.
    Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
³ I am sick at heart.
    How long, O Lord, until you restore me?

⁴ Return, O Lord, and rescue me.
    Save me because of your unfailing love.
⁵ For the dead do not remember you.
    Who can praise you from the grave?

⁶ I am worn out from sobbing.
    All night I flood my bed with weeping,
    drenching it with my tears.
⁷ My vision is blurred by grief;
    my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.

⁸ Go away, all you who do evil,
    for the Lord has heard my weeping.
⁹ The Lord has heard my plea;
    the Lord will answer my prayer.
¹⁰ May all my enemies be disgraced and terrified.
    May they suddenly turn back in shame.

Psalm 6 NLT

In his individual psalm of lament, David cries out to the Lord for deliverance and mercy. Apparently, David had fallen gravely ill and ascribes the onset of his sickness as God’s discipline for some unstated sin that David confesses through his sorrowful lament recorded in Psalm 6.

“Having been chastened by the LORD, David asked for forgiveness. Then, with the assurance that God had heard him, he warned his adversaries to leave him alone, because God was about to shame them.”

Dr. Thomas Constable

In his sorrow and affliction, we see David cry out to God, acknowledging the Lord’s sovereignty and hand in his life. David recognizes all he has comes from the Lord. Surely, in the Lord’s grace and mercy, the Great Divine will deliver His favored son from His wrath and anger? As my beloved professor, Dr. Daehnert say, David is experiencing a dark night of the soul.

David is confident that the Lord, our God, will restore Him to good health. He rests in the assurance that our God will answer his prayer.

Have you ever experienced a dark night of the soul? If so, I would love to hear how you weathered that storm.

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Click here to listen to my Spotify playlist curated to help you navigate those dark nights of the soul and prayerful lament.

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Terri (Tern) and I have both been off work most of this past week. It always seems to take us a few days to decompress before we fully experience vacation mode.

Hurricane Beryl is barreling toward the Texas Gulf Coast promising to shower us with rain. I pray you find this post useful and that the week ahead is rich in blessings that sustain you along your walk with Jesus.

Know you are loved.

Rainer Bantau —The Devotional Guy™