I read this brilliant insight from David Powlison’s book Speaking the Truth in Love, as he reflects on Psalm 119.

“Psalm 119 is the thoughtful outcry that rises when real life meets real God.”

“It’s not just naked candor.Raw honesty is always perverted by the insanity of sin. Should you “get in touch with your feelings and say what you really think”? You do need to face what is going on in yourself and your world. And the opposites of honesty are other madnesses: indifference, busyness, stoicism, niceness, ignorance, self-deception, or denial. But how will you interpret what you feel? Where will you go with it? Honesty in the raw is always godless, willful, opinionated, self-centered. And personal honesty never actually faces reality if it does not simultaneously face God. ‘A fool finds no pleasure in understanding, but delights in airing his own opinions’ (Proverbs 18:2) Psalm 119 demonstrates the salvation of honesty. When you truly face yourself, your circumstances, and God, even painful honesty takes on the sanity of Jesus.”

*Speaking the Truth in Love, pp. 14-15

Gib spoke this past week on the idea of lament and as a community, we were led through a profound reading of lament over the circumstances in our lives, our city, and our world.  I (JR) have continued to ponder the place of lament in the life of Christian community for the last few days.  Many of you will have already discussed this in your small groups, but as mine meets tonight, I am still looking forward to the discussion.

To be transparent, I must admit that I am scared to lament.  It makes me vulnerable and threatens the pride I take in situations being within my control.  These desires I have however, for invulnerability on the one hand and pride in my own ability to control situations on the other, are nothing shy of idolatry.  To lament then, is to blaspheme the idols in my life in the hope that God will fill the void.  The way God fills this void however, comes not by an immediate change of the situations which I lament, but by the constitution and life of a community which laments together - in hope.

I take great solace in the biblical notion that while lamenting may threaten that which I (wrongly) hold most dear, it simultaneously grants me the opportunity to realign my vision of reality with God’s by drawing me into a community seeking to live out the reality of God’s Kingdom in the world.

This is not a foreign concept to us; misery, as they say, loves company.  But this is where the world and the people of God part ways.  We seek solace in the arms of others not because they merely empathize with us and our grief (this is yet another form of idolatry), but because the very Spirit of God dwells in the midst of the body of Christ, strengthening us, sustaining us, and filling us with an overflowing measure of faith, hope, and love.  I would go so far as to say that lament – a God-centered cry for justice and mercy – is a divine opportunity for us to live out what it means to be the people of God – a people united not in their complaints, but in their Spirit-infused hope for the Kingdom of God to come “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Well, I am about a week into my trek through the Psalms, both individually and corporately. I wanted to note a few points describing what I have been learning/experiencing.

* I have been applying Psalm 1 to multiple areas of life. The “2 ways to live” idea permeates every day decisions and activities. I am making an effort to glorify Christ in the mundane details of life, while experiencing the nearness of God in these moments. And of course, worshiping God through a good cup of coffee!

* As I have prepared to preach a Psalm of Lament this Sunday, I have seen several areas of my prayer life that need reform. One of these areas is praying for those who are experiencing something similar to what the Psalm describes. Lamenting breaks us out of our perpetual self-concern. (Stay tuned for the podcast from last night’s Psalms intensive, Dr. Bean did a fantastic job explaining this concept.)

* The Psalms develop a hunger in me to express my faith in the context of community. It simply dumbfounds me that the people of God would express these gritty, raw, intense elements of life amongst one another. I hope and pray that Living Hope would continue to become a place where the reality of life and faith would be known, in the context of community.

See you Sunday!

Tomorrow I start back on an exercise regimen that I have neglected for some time. Since I have a perpetual love/hate relationship with working out, I will once again have to endure a few weeks of soreness. Anytime I take a week or two off from my routine, it feels as though I have started running/lifting/stretching for the first time. Beyond sore muscles, there is also an awkwardness that comes with my lapse in regularity. My running motion or lifting form feels odd, like I am doing something wrong. Between the soreness and the awkwardness, its almost enough to quit…again!

The same can be true with our prayer life and spiritual practices. As we start to integrate the Psalms into our spiritual lives, it can seem a little awkward at first. We begin to pray for things that we haven’t prayed for before. We pray for people we normally wouldn’t consider when praying. We sing songs we may not have sung before. We lament, we celebrate, we express a response to God in a way we’ve never expressed before. We lose familiar words and phrases. We find ourselves in awkward silence. The newness pressures us to revert back to the old ways.

All of these things can be weird or feel different. But, just as it takes time and practice to rid our bodies of soreness and awkward motions, so to it takes time to make new spiritual practices a part of our response to God. I pray that you will push through these next several weeks and allow God to develop some new habits in your pursuit of him.