Seeking God Through Lament and Worship in Trouble

### Quotes for Outreach

1. "The Psalms are the inspired word of God that teach us how to be human and prepare us for every possible circumstance. And today's Psalm is no exception. So, grab your Bibles or your journals and turn to Psalm 77. Like so many of the Psalms, this is a pretty gritty and raw, um, Psalm. If you didn't bring a Bible and you don't have your journals with you, there's a Bible under your seat. If you want to read along, welcome to do that." [43:48] (25 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "In the day of trouble, seek the Lord. The reality is when we go through the most difficult seasons, when I picture that, I picture the trees in the forest, that are toppled up, we either are blown over or our roots go deeper, right? There seems to be no in-between. In the deepest of trouble, we're either uprooted or our roots go deeper." [51:38] (25 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Sometimes we need to tell our soul what is true, just like the video. There's almost a year passes of Jessica telling her soul what is true. No, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And she kept saying, and I didn't really believe it, but I kept saying it until the day it finally clicked. And now it is ingrained. And she is one of the most beautiful, strong people. I know she's part of our team. She's amazing woman who knows that she is fearfully and wonderfully made because she kept speaking that truth into her own soul." [01:04:13] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Sometimes we just need to stop, put the pieces back together and remember. Asaph says, in the days of trouble, seek the Lord. One last encouragement for you and I think this is a great thing. is an encouragement. But when you struggle, when you have troubles, when you are really unsettled, you are in really good company. You know, Job said, my eyes will never see anything good. My eyes are never going to see anything good again. That wasn't the way the story played out, but that's where Job was at the moment." [01:10:52] (37 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "You got to fight. You got to stay in the fight, and you got to fight for more of God. In the day of trouble, seek the Lord. So I want to just kind of recap where we've been. Follow the rhythm of this psalm. Cry out to God. Use your voice. Do not isolate yourself. Use your voice. Cry out to God. Cry out to the trusted community. Cry out to the people who are going to walk with you. Use your voice. Do not isolate yourself, but go to the community, and go to God, and speak what's bothering you out loud." [01:11:44] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


### Quotes for Members

1. "I think it's fascinating that our brains are actually hardwired for lament. Our brains are actually hardwired actually for the speaking of trauma. So modern psychotherapy or therapy, if you've ever been through therapy, I've been through enough therapy. There's no shame in going through therapy. But what is the tip or the typical way that therapists work is they ask you, tell me what happened. So you tell the whole story, and then they get you, how did you feel? And you walk away thinking those are the easiest questions ever. But there's something that happens in our brain, right side, left side of our brains. It happens when we speak about trauma, when we bring trauma to the service, and we talk about what happened and how it made us feel. We are hardwired to lament." [54:55] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "And actually, to lament, it's not complaining, it's actually a sign of intimacy. So I have a close friend I've been meeting with for over 25 years. Almost every Friday morning, we have breakfast together. So I sit with Mike, and what I know about Mike is that he's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. I can tell Mike my disappointments. I can tell Mike my greatest struggle at the time. He is a trusted friend. And the fact that I will not only share the difficulties of my life, but also the things that are going great, it's because we have an intimate friendship, right? It's a sign of intimacy. The fact that you can go to God and talk to God and tell God your deepest emotions and be like the psalmist and just be honest with God. When God doesn't make sense, tell him he doesn't make sense. When you're mad at God, tell him you're mad. All of those things, it's not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of intimacy." [57:34] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "So as you read Psalm 77, you're going to become more and more aware. So if you read through it a couple times, maybe in the afternoon today or in some time ahead, you're going to be more and more aware of the tension that exists in the Psalm. It's about pain and it's also about relief. It's about turmoil and it's about comfort. It's about having doubts and still trusting in God. We see all of these, what seem to be conflicting emotions and feelings in the same Psalm. This is what we call a Psalm of lament. There are more Psalms of lament in the scriptures than any other types of Psalms. And a lament is basically a passionate expression of grief or sorrow, an expression of loss, an expression of loss." [53:08] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "And the idea is that we take the things of the past, those things that have happened to us, and we don't put them in their right order, right? We don't remember who's responsible for them. We begin to take credit for things that we shouldn't take credit for or we place blame on people who shouldn't have the blame. We get the whole thing out of order and to really remember is to put everything in its rightful place and to remember it for what it actually is. And I think that's part of what we have to do with the gospel at times. We have to remember that God chose you. That if you even understand the gospel, it's because the spirit of God revealed that to you. You didn't do anything to earn it. You didn't do anything to deserve it. You can't do enough to get it. But sometimes we begin to give ourselves way too much credit and we dismember the gospel and we gotta go back to the truth and we gotta remember what the gospel really is. Put the pieces together where they belong." [01:09:18] (67 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "So sometimes we need to remember the gospel. We have this practice we've been doing here for quite a few years and personally, I love it. I hope that you've been doing it with us. But the idea is at the end of the year, beginning of the year, you begin to pray about a word. God, would you give me a word that I could just meditate on and let sink in for the entire year? With the thought being that if you do this for 10 years, 15 years, that certain truths are going to be embedded in who you are. Well, my word for 2024 is the word remember. And I purposefully hyphenated this because there was an epiphany along the way late in the year where I realized that the opposite of remembering is not forgetting. Remembering is not forgetting. The opposite of remembering is to dismember." [01:08:38] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)