Audio Transcript
We hear often from you, from listeners, writing us in a moment when life’s pain is so sharp and so persistent that you look up at heaven and want to yell. Maybe you do. You say, “I wish I were never born.”
Lament. There are lessons to learn about lament — though not inside that pain that brings us near the breaking point, but in quieter times — times when the pain isn’t too sharp. Because the Bible seems to draw a very specific line. There is a holy lament. And there is a wrong way to complain. So, where is that line?
That comes up in a question from Connie, who lives in Reno, Nevada. “Pastor John, chronic illness often makes me question God’s love to me. In Jeremiah 20:14, the prophet himself cries out, ‘Cursed be the day on which I was born!’ Is such raw lament even permissible for the believer, or is this blasphemous? I’ve felt this same thought bubble up in my mind and heart, but I’m afraid to voice it. It seems greatly dishonoring to the Creator to wish to have never existed. How can I honestly express deep sorrow without doubting his goodness? Does lament deepen faith, or does it risk leading me into unbelief? I long to grieve faithfully but feel lost in the tension between pain and trust.”
There is a way to define lament so that it is a sin. And there is a way to define lament so that it is not a sin. So, we can’t simply endorse lament without defining what we mean.
Five Statements on Lament
Let me make five statements. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, because I’m concerned about this whole frequency by which we talk about lament as though we know what we’re talking about. Let me make five statements to clarify what is sin and what is not in the way we feel and think about God in the midst of suffering. And then I’ll take them one at a time and try to show why they’re true.
- It is never right, it is always sin, to feel or think or say critical things about God and his ways.
- It may be right to feel or think or express perplexity at God’s ways and to seek help from him to understand as much as possible — to cry out for it.
- It may be right to feel or think or express how painful God’s ways are in your life and to seek God’s help to understand and endure.
- The sin of having critical feelings or critical thoughts of God is not made worse by the sin of expressing those words to him aloud. I’ll come back to that.
- God disapproves of being criticized because it dishonors him, but he forgives those who repent and trust Christ.
Those are my five theses about lament. Let’s start with number one.
The Folly of Criticizing God
The reason it is always wrong and never right to criticize God is that he never does anything wrong. Everything he does is right and good and wise and holy.
- “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4).
- “All his works are right and his ways are just” (Daniel 4:37).
- “All his work is done in faithfulness” (Psalm 33:4).
- “Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!” (Revelation 15:3).
- “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!” (Revelation 16:7).
- “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
It is wrong to criticize God because he never does anything wrong. He never does anything worthy of criticism. To accuse him of wrong is to dishonor him, and dishonoring him is the opposite of righteousness. It is sin.
“When we cry to God for deliverance, that’s very different from telling God he’s wrong and making a mistake.”
Job said some terrible things about God. He said that God was treating him as his enemy, for example. God was not. Job’s indictment of God is never excused. On the contrary, at the end, Job repents in dust and ashes for what he said. “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5–6). And when his wife suggested to him — indeed, told him — that he should curse God and die, Job himself said, “You’re talking like one of the foolish women” (see Job 2:10). Only foolish people curse God.
In fact, Job was so concerned that his children, while they were living, might curse God, that he got up every morning and offered a sacrifice for them, lest they be found to have cursed God (Job 1:5). Cursing God is that deadly.
When Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 20:14, cursed the day on which he was born, he was sinning because of this. God had told him in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah’s birth and the purpose of it was not his or any man’s idea. It was God’s idea, God’s design, God’s purpose. To curse God’s purpose is sin.
This doesn’t undermine our love for the infallibility of the Scriptures, by the way. Scripture is not sinning when it reports sin. Scripture is not lying when it reports lies. Scripture is not blaspheming when it reports blasphemy. And there are always enough clues in the context so that we know the difference between what is being reported and what is being commended.
So, it’s never right to feel or think or say critical things about God.
Drawing Near Through Pain
But there’s nothing sinful about a humble, finite person being utterly perplexed at the ways of God. Like Mary, the mother of Jesus, thinking, “I’m going to have a baby, and I’m a virgin.” She was totally confused by God’s ways. And when she asks God, “How can this be?” he’s very happy to answer her: “You’re going to be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit” (see Luke 1:34–35). So it’s not wrong to be perplexed by God and to ask him what’s going on.
Nor is it wrong to say to God about some painful providence in your life, “God, this hurts. Please take it away.” Isn’t that what Paul did in 2 Corinthians 12:7–9 with his thorn in the flesh? Three times he said, “Take it away. Take it away. Take it away.” That’s not a sin to tell God it hurts, ask him to take it away, and then submit to whatever he decides. Jesus knows what pain is. He suffered more deeply than any of us, so he can sympathize with us when we cry to him for deliverance and for sustaining grace. That’s very different from telling God he’s wrong and making a mistake. He’s not. He’s never wrong.
And since God knows all your feelings and all your thoughts before you express them, you might as well express them. If you’re feeling critical of God, the sin has already been committed in your heart, and he sees it and knows it. It may be that when you express it out loud, you will hear how horrible it is to tell the infinitely perfect God that you know better than he does how to run the world.
Finally, criticizing God is not the unforgivable sin. Oh my goodness, if it were, we’d all be undone, I suppose. Job found mercy in the eyes of the Lord when he repented, and that’s true today.
Pastoral Caution
And maybe one last pastoral word here: Timing really matters in how you teach believers how to lament. You teach them before they suffer, not in that horrible moment of pain and tragedy and loss. That’s not a pedagogical moment. That’s a moment for hugging and weeping and sympathy and much silence.
The time to help people suffer well is before they suffer. And if they sin in their suffering, we will wait patiently. And when they have gotten their bearings again as the months go by, it may be that we won’t even have to say anything because they will themselves have already begun to regret the things that they said.
