March 2020 brought all of us face-to-face with limits. It doesn’t matter who you are; ask anyone to reflect on that spring and you’ll hear limits.
Our activity was limited. Our understanding was limited as talking heads gave ever-changing reports. Our pantries, toilet paper, finances, and social interaction were limited. Even our entertainment was limited—how many watched Tiger King out of desperation?!
We were all confronted with our mortality, as we questioned the deadliness of the virus. “Teach us to number our days,” the psalmist prays (Ps. 90:12). COVID-19 taught us to count.
In the midst of all the loss, confusion, and loneliness, a long-neglected biblical practice began to re-emerge. Slowly, the church began to talk of lament. Faced with an unprecedented experience, we turned to the ancient Psalms to learn to pray.
Three years later, many of us—forgetful people that we are—need to be reminded of lament. Limits offer us a daily opportunity to practice this discipline because lament isn’t just for suffering on a global scale. The invitation to experience the comfort of our Father’s presence is there even in our small moments of unrest.
Limits are often uncomfortable. It is sometimes painful for us to say, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places” (Ps. 16:6). Lament gives words to our pain. As we direct those words to the Lord in honesty, we remind our hearts of the character of God, and pray for faith to hold tightly to who he is. Lament leads us to faith—not a grit-your-teeth-and-believe-it faith, but a deep, settled trust in the goodness of God. In his book, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Mark Vroegop writes,
“Lament is a prayer that leads us through personal sorrow and difficult questions into truth that anchors our soul.”1
Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy
Sorrow and difficult questions are often present in our limits. Lament invites us to speak with God about our everyday disappointments, like the flu bug that rolls in overnight and disrupts plans for a much-anticipated evening out. Lament also calls us to bring him the crippling grief of our limits—the unanswered prayers for a baby, marriage, or healing. By coming to the Lord with even the small, seemingly mundane limits, our hearts are trained to lament the earth-shattering pain.
How do we practice lament in the pain of our limits? Mark Vroegop suggests four movements to lament: “turn to God, bring your complaint, ask boldly, and choose to trust.”2
Turn to God
This is the goodness of limits: they keep us near our Shepherd and dependent on him. That doesn’t diminish the pain, but it reminds us that we aren’t alone in it. So when you feel the sting of a limit, stop where you are and turn to your Shepherd.
“I cried aloud to the LORD,
and he answered me from his holy hill.”
Psalm 3:4
Bring Your Complaint
As you cry out to the Lord, give a name to the limit, its pain, and your emotions. I spoke recently with a friend who was beginning to read the Psalms for the first time. She was worried that she was reading them wrong because at times it sounded to her like the psalmist was complaining. Many of us have a similar response—to complain to the Lord feels off-limits. But that’s exactly what the psalmist models in lament. Lament doesn’t stop with complaining, but it also doesn’t stop short of it. Bring your complaint to the Lord with honesty. He knows your heart (Jer. 17:10), so you don’t need to fear shocking him with the depths of your pain or even your anger.
Boldly Ask
As you bring your complaint, boldly ask the Lord to move. Pray boldly for the desires that are beyond your control. Ask him to transform your heart through his Spirit. Ask him, as the old hymn goes, “for faith to trust him more.”
“Incline your ear to me;
rescue me speedily!
Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me!”
Psalm 31:2
Choose to Trust
A dear friend once wrote, “Faith is not a feeling but a choice to take God at his word.”3 Our hearts move in this direction as we practice lament. We are changed as we turn to God, bring him our complaints, and boldly ask him to move. Mark Vroegop notes that throughout the Psalms of lament, there are turning points, where the psalmist says, “But….”
But I trust in you, O LORD;
I say, “You are my God.”
Psalm 31:14, emphasis added
Though our limits are painful and not what we would choose, yet we will praise him. We remember his character. We choose to remember that he is good, even when our limits feel burdensome.
Lament continually reorients our hearts. It shapes the way we see our limits. What feels restrictive, confining, or burdensome becomes the very thing that leads us nearer to the heart of God. That’s not to minimize the pain, but to illustrate the surpassing goodness of our God. He uses it all—the small disappointments and the heartbreaking grief—to draw us near, near enough to experience his comfort.
“But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.”
Lamentations 3:21-23
1 Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament. (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2019), 34.
2 Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, 196.
3 Ney Bailey, Faith is Not a Feeling: Choosing to Take God at His Word. (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2002), xvi.