A Story of Lament

"Lament" by Connie Bulter

     Have you ever heard a baby cry? Of course you have. What can be more irritating? I think it  is that way on purpose. God made it so that it is hard to ignore its cry. As a parent and a grandparent nothing grabs my attention more than when my baby is crying. I can't sleep. I can't watch t.v. I can't talk to someone. I have been in a  conversations with a person when a baby is crying and it is really hard to concentrate on what the person is saying.  I am looking at their lips moving but all I can really hear is the baby crying. All I want to do is help that baby so it will stop crying!
     There are times in the bible when God's children cried out and He heard them.  We are made in imago Dei, right? We are in His image. If we are like this then he is probably made us like Him. He has a hard time resisting our cries.  Good examples are: (I'll name one and then you name one) I'll take the easy one, God heard the cries of the Children of Israel coming up before Him. I wonder if he was in a conversation with an angle and had to break it off?  Your turn. Yes you can use individuals, like Hagar. She had to leave her baby Ishmael to die in the desert. But God heard her cries and saved them both. Alright another please, I gave you that one. Yes great example.  Hanah crying out because she was barren and her sister-wife, as they are called on Big Love, was making fun of her. Eli thought she was drunk because she was making such a scene. I know you have more but we have made my point. Thanks.
      Crying out to God is a major point of the Old Testament, and I think it is in a walk with God. Nearly a third of the Psalms are laments, fourty-four Psalms (Stevens). That is a lot of crying out and lamenting. Why are there so many Psalms of Lament and examples of people crying out to God?
      I think, like the baby, God put something in the ears of parents that is like His ears. They can not look away when the baby is in need and crying desperately for help. When I read the passages in Psalms,  the cry from the psalmist  is coupled with the request for God to hear the cry. A good word study might be to see how many times the word "cry" is followed by the word "hear".  The cry of despair carries in its vibrations the effectiveness desired by the perpetrator to God's ears.

On the farm w/ my bro. & cuzs

     It reminds me of being on my uncle's farm where I used to go work during the summer when I was a boy. He raised hogs that are similar but not exactly like pigs. There is one thing they have in common. When one would get caught in a fence, he squeels with amazing ear-piercing penetration. We used to ride those hogs when they would come up to the feed wagon. We would jump on their backs and they would head straight for the fence. Of course we would fall off into the mud long before the hog went through the hole in the fence. Some would get stuck in the fence. When they did,  they would started hollering and we would take off. We knew Uncle Sid would be coming and you didn't want to be caught riding his hogs. But you could hear that hog all over the farm. It didn't matter where Uncle Sid was we knew he could hear that hog 'hollarin'. Well, I know we are not hogs, at least most of us. But I know when I have myself caught in a rough spot I can start hollering or as a Biblical expert might call it, lamenting.
       It really is a good place to be, because I know when I reach that point, like Hagar, or the Children of Israel, or Hannah, in my distress I cry out and the Lord will hear me. It  reaches His ears. Like a good father, actually the best, He will answer our cries.
      There have been times when I have prayed and prayed and have received nothing. The heavens seemed as a bowl of brass. But when I am finally where God wants me, caught in that fence and my cries come from a place of real helplessness and need, he answers me and delivers me from the mire. Psalm 69 is a great lament that starts off with a cry and ends with deliverance.  This is not the exception but the rule for songs of lament. God seems to answer speedily when we are finally in that place of seeking Him only for the answer.
     Twelve years she sought medical help, but in one despairing moment, in desperation she made a cry only God could hear and she touched Him. She touched Him and he made her whole (Matt.9:20-22 KJV).

     Post thought. What if a third of our song books in our churches were laments. We could come to church and sing those laments maybe a third of the time, I wonder if we would be met more by God?
One word in Psalms 54 for lament or "cry out" is  Hama, cry aloud, mourn, rage, roar,make noise, tumult; be clamorous, disquieted. Our quiet Sunday morning services may not be the same. 

  Reference: John Robert Stevens: The Effectiveness of Despair.