By now, you may have noticed a pattern in what I’ve been circling this week.
It’s not about a single event.
It’s not about winning an argument.
It’s about how we speak when the world feels sharp.
Christian faith has always lived in tension: between grief and trust, between honesty and restraint, and between truth and love. When we lose that tension, our words begin to harden. They may still be correct, but they stop being formative.
Scripture gives us a better way.
The Bible is full of lament—people crying out to God because the world is not as it should be. Lament doesn’t sanitize pain or rush to answers. It names loss, injustice, fear, and confusion without pretending faith makes those things disappear.
But lament is never the end of the story.
Alongside it lives hope—not optimism, not spin, not denial, but a deep, steady confidence that God is still present and still working, even when we can’t see how.
When Christians lose lament, we become shallow. When we lose hope, we become harsh. And when we lose both, our words turn into weapons.
This is where wisdom matters.
Wisdom asks before it posts.
Wisdom listens before it responds.
Wisdom understands that not every truth needs to be delivered at full volume to be faithful.
Christian writing (whether blogs, comments, or conversations) was never meant to sound like an echo chamber or a war room. It was meant to sound like people who have been with God, people who know how to grieve without despair and speak without cruelty.
So maybe Wednesday wisdom is simply this:
Let your words be shaped by prayer before they’re shaped by opinion.
Let lament soften your certainty.
Let hope steady your tone.
The world has plenty of noise. What it needs are voices that carry weight because they carry love. That kind of wisdom doesn’t shout. It endures.
Until my next post…
Be salty, stay lit.
Rainer Bantau —The Devotional Guy™
You can now find my articles in The Christian Grandfather Magazine.
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Yes, Barb. I agree. Lament refuses simple answers. It names the pain honestly while still turning our eyes and hearts toward God. Learning to hold both sides of the coin—grief and hope—is part of the sacred work of lament, in my experience. Thank you for sharing your thoughtful comment and for reading my post(s). Have a blessed day, Barb!
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Yes, we must always look at both sides of the lament.
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