This week we took a look at a type of Psalm that contains prayers of Lament. These are prayers where people honestly open their heart to God by expressing anger, frustration, disappointment, and feelings of abandonment to God. These prayers give us permission to cry out to God when life doesn’t make sense or the activity and presence of God at best seems absent. We need to learn how to pray in a way that both expresses deep honesty with God and a resolve to trust Him even when we can’t make sense of His work. Here are some ideas for incorporating this type of prayer in life. Once again, we would love you to chime in by responding with ideas you have used in your prayer life.
*Don’t fear honesty with God
*Use a journal and write your prayers
*Pray the Lament Psalms when you are hurting.
*Find someone who has chewed the same dirt and pray with them
*Pray over your photo albums
*Read biographies of faithful Christians
Prayers of Lament
*Community Lament Psalms to be used in corporate worship as God’s people cry out to Him together -Psalm 12, 44, 58, 60, 74, 79, 80, 83, 85, 89*, 90, 94, 123, 126, 129
*Individual Laments – Psalm 3, 4, 5, 7, 9-10, 13, 14, 17, 22, 25, 26-28, 31, 36, 39, 40, 41-43, 52-57, 59, 61, 64, 70,71, 77,86, 89, 120, 139, 141, 142
*Imprecatory Laments, these prayers arise out of situations where the enemies of God and His people are experiencing victory and God’s people cry out to God for Him to defeat and judge those who reject God and His plan – Psalm 35, 69, 83, 88, 109, 137, 140