Growing up, Mark Clifton said church was always a pretty positive place.
“We wanted to always be upbeat, always to be happy,” he said in a recent “Mondays with Mark” podcast episode on Facebook. “Even sometimes now I feel like sometimes we always want this Sunday be better than last Sunday, and boy, next Sunday is going to be even greater.”
But recent events remind us that “life hurts a lot,” said Clifton, who is senior director of replanting at the North American Mission Board and has served as a pastor, church planter and church revitalizer over the years.
Lamenting is a way to “grieve with those who grieve and mourn with those who mourn. To say, ‘God, I don’t know why this is happening.’”
Scripture understands that feeling, he said.
“Much of the psalms is lamenting. Probably the most powerful lament in all of Scripture, in all history, was when our Lord on the cross cried out and said, ‘My God, my God, Why has thou forsaken me?’”
Natural response
Whether it’s the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of health or the loss of health of a loved one, or even just things going on in life and ministry, the weight of daily struggles can be heavy. Lament is a natural response to pain, he said.
“Lamenting forces us to turn to God and to quit trusting in ourselves, to quit trusting in the affirmation of people,” he said. “It causes us to look to God, to look to Christ.”
In lamenting, he said, it’s OK to express your heart in a raw and real way.
“[God] wants us to be truthful with Him and honest with Him,” Clifton said. “We turn to God, and we lean into him, and we complain to him and we express to him our need and what we desire. … And then we have to trust him. … He’ll do what’s right for us, even when it doesn’t appear that way.
“And when you run to him, you find him trustworthy, and when you find him trustworthy, you realize he’s got a bigger plan than we could ever imagine. Some way, the way only God can, He will work all of this together for his good and for his glory, and even for our joy, at some point in time. We may not know that now, but we’ll know it someday.
Speaking to pastors, Clifton urged them not to ignore lamenting in personal and corporate worship.
“Let the Spirit of God minister to you,” he said. “You will often find more depth of intimacy with God in times of lament than in any other times in your life.”
Hear more from Clifton on lamenting here. Read more on lamenting here.
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