Psalm 70

Come quickly! Such is the cry of David as once again he finds himself poor and needy in the face of his enemies. The heart-cry of David wants to worship God and wants to cry out that God is exalted, yet he finds himself trapped in his own circumstances. And so he finds himself in lament- the fuzzy gray between God's perfect wonder and the world's (seemingly) unending brokenness. It would be easy to paint lament as "being mad at God," although that doesn't get to the heart of the matter. Anger is a second tier emotion; that is, anger comes after we feel something else. In David's case, the anger comes from fear. True lament gets to the heart. It cries out the question "Why?!?" and is not satisfied by platitudes and fake answers. Lament takes the goodness of God and holds it next to the absolute absurdity of life circumstances and refuses to ignore either. Lament is not an easy place to be, but it is a necessary place to be sometimes. Let's not be afraid of lament, but embrace its place in our lives and in the life of God's people.