Worship Service | May 3, 2026 | Psalms for the Soul (Part 3: Lament)

Now I think this begs the question, so why is lament so important? Why does God seem to think it's important? And I wrestled with this, and this is really what I came up with. Lament acknowledges the weight of sin, suffering, and death, and invites God to do something about it. And I think it's easy for us in the face of all of those things that we experience to ignore them, to wanna put them aside, to go those are unpleasant and difficult. But I think if we do that, we don't acknowledge the weight that they have in our lives and in our world. [00:12:33] (37 seconds)  #WhyLamentMatters

Now if that's true, what's a healthier way to handle all that we feel that avoids both of the extremes? And we're in this series on psalms, and it gives us a better approach than the extremes. Now, Nathaniel, the first week of this series, encouraged you to, check out the bible project and to check out their overview of the Psalms, which I would encourage you to check out. And this is how they summarize what Psalms teaches us. This is a great summary. It says, Psalms teaches us to neither ignore our pain nor let it determine our lives. [00:07:39] (35 seconds)  #PsalmsTeachBalance

You see, God wants, an open and a healthy relationship with us, and an open and healthy relationship is willing to address the hard things as well as the good things. And that's the kind of relationship that God wants to have with us. We see this modeled by Jesus when he was on the cross. And as he hung there, one of the things he said was, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? And if Jesus can be in that place of lament, that place of difficulty where he's willing to turn to God and to cry out in his pain, we should be able to do that as well. [00:20:17] (38 seconds)  #BringHardThingsToGod

You see, lament invites us to dare to hope that God can hear our prayers and that he can respond according to his goodness and his promises, and this is really an act of faith. And, again, we see this in Psalm 13 and verse three. Turn to me and answer me, oh lord my god. Restore the sparkle to my eyes or I will die. Don't let my enemies gloat saying, we have defeated him. Don't let them rejoice at my downfall. [00:21:02] (29 seconds)  #TrustGodHears