Walking Through the Valley of Lament
Pastor: Aron Osbourne Series: Walking Through the Valley of Lament Topic: Lament Passage: Lamentations 3:16–33
10/20/24 - Guest Series - Aron Osborne
-Walking Through the Valley of Lament-
I. Introduction
Have you ever been given a compliment but at completely the wrong time and for reasons you wish weren’t true?That was me in 2022. “You look great.What are you doing?What’s your secret?”
One Part Sleeplessness
One Part No eating because I have no appetite.
One Part Involuntary moments of intense weeping
One Part All-out war with my thoughts
One Part A combination of perceived but also possibly real abandonment
“Oh, I haven’t heard of that one?Is it on TikTok? What’s the name of it?”
LAMENT!
I looked the way I looked in large part, because I was in the Valley of Lament.
- II.What is Lament?
A lament is a deep and prolonged expression of grief, sorrow, or regret.It is hard poetry.
Lament may come due to some decision, sin, failure, or action.
Lament can come from outside of you; a family member is ridden with cancer (share story of candidate with phone).
Or lament is a combination of things that have happened to you outside of your control with a good measure of your own decisions.That would summarize my 2022.
Lament isn’t in a hurry.It can feel heavy, like a weighted blanket.It can feel like gravity, pulling you down.Lament is a valley; it isn’t the mountain top!It’s a place where it is hard to see, and if we are brutally honest, where it’s hard to hope.
Now, before I send you into lament listening to what sounds like a depressing start to a message, I want you to know I’m a glass half full kind of guy 99 days out of 100, even if there isn’t any water in my glass.But Lament still comes.
But let’s speak to a reality right at the start; we live in a time and culture, including many segments of church culture, where we are perpetually told to “look on the bright side.”Lament can be jarring.We’d rather walk around and join Johnny Nash singing, “It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day.”
Well, it isn’t always a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day! Some days the dark clouds don’t disappear. Some days you can’t look straight ahead and see nothing but blue skies.Some days you can’t see at all! Oh, we may fake it, force a smile, try to get our shoulders square and back straight, but…we are in the valley of lament.
I am pro “look on the bright side” whenever possible, but the reality is the world is broken!We are broken! I am broken!
Did you know that 1/3 of the Psalms are laments?50 out of 150! Listen to just a few of the groans and grief coming from tired, confused, broken and numb children of God confronted by the harsh realities of brokenness in this life…
“How long, Lord?Will you forget me forever?How long will you hide your face from me?How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? – Psalm 13:1-2 (possibly when David was in hiding from Saul)
“Long enough, God—you’ve ignored me long enough.I’ve looked at the back of your head long enough.Long enough I’ve carried this ton of trouble, lived in a stomach full of pain.Long enough my arrogant enemies have looked down their noses at me.” – The Message
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?” – Psalm 22:1 (this is the Psalm Jesus quoted from the Cross)
"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing." – CS Lewis
“Lord, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you.May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry.” – Psalm 88:1-2 (written by Heman, a worship leader in Israel).
But perhaps no passage of Scripture more acutely, deeply, and honestly depicts what lament looks, feels, sounds, and even smells like, than Lamentations 3.
I want us to see together from this passage three things we need to know about walking through the valley of lament…
Lament is hard.
Lament is hopeful.
Lament enables us to see the horizon.
I’m not trying to be overly simplistic in describing lament this way.I’m seeking a tangible way to remember what Jeremiah the prophet is saying as he went through his own personal and national lament. Let’s see how these three realities of lament work out in this passage.
Let’s read this together, slowly.Ask to feel it.You may not even have to ask because this may be your reality right now; you are familiar with lament.
- Lamentations 3:16-33
He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;
17 my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is;
18 so I say, “My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the Lord.”
19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
29 let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope;
30 let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.
31 For the Lord will not
cast off forever,
32 but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33 for he does not afflict from his heart
or grieve the children of men.
Understanding Lamentations
Lamentations was likely written by the prophet Jeremiah.His prophetic ministry was during a tumultuous period in the southern kingdom of Judah.
The Babylonian Empire was at its peak, and Jeremiah spent several decades warning 5 different kings of Judah and the people of impending judgment and destruction if they didn’t turn their hearts back to the Lord.
Jeremiah had a hard life.His moniker or nickname was the “weeping” prophet.
Think about that.Of all the nicknames or monikers, Jeremiah gets, “The Weeping Prophet”
Remember WWF or WWE depending on your age?
“Macho Man” Randy Savage
“Stone Cold” Steve Austin
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Bret “The Hitman” Hart
Jimmy “the Mouth of the South” Hart
Some nicknames are so cool we often don’t even know their real name…Terry Gene Bollea, AKA Hulk Hogan!
Abraham – Father of Nations
Moses – The Deliverer
David – The Anointed One
Peter – The Rock
Sons of Thunder – James and John
The only company Jeremiah has in the Bible is Doubting Thomas…everyone else had these cool nicknames.Jeremiah wasn’t trending on TikTok!No T-shirt sales! No Spotify!
Jeremiah not only wrote; he felt deep sorrow, grief, a profound sense of loss.Lament is all these things.And for Jeremiah the pain and agony of lament was, in a sense, double, because he wasn’t only watching his nation disintegrate; he was personally mocked and ostracized because his message was unpopular.His approval ratings as a prophet isolated him into a solitary life.
- Lament is hard; it forces us to see and feel things as they are, and there is no hiding it!
He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;
17 my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness[a] is;
18 so I say, “My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the Lord.”
19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
There are these raw, dark and honest emotions we go through in the challenging moments or seasons of life.
The imagery Jeremiah uses can seem inaccessible…except to those who know exactly what it feels like through personal experience.
Teeth grinding on gravel – the harsh and abrasive reality of suffering.
Cower in ashes – brought to your knees after destruction, like a fire that scorched everything.
Bereft of peace – total absence.
No remembrance of happiness – the inability to see back; the suffering has darkened remembrance of what was before it in a sense.
Reaching this crescendo, this complete defeat…my endurance is finished, and so is my hope from the LORD.
Jeremiah, in raw honesty, is describing the agony and bewilderment that accompanies lament. He’s giving full expression to it. Lament is coming to terms with the reality of a situation, and Jeremiah is not in denial.Jerusalem is ruined.Israel is captive.And in this case, it is their own fault.
- Lament is hopeful; without lament you might break your hand or your jaw! ????
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.
How, for all its pain, sleeplessness, and stripping away all joy, can lament be hopeful?
Lament may break you, but it won’t crush you, because God is faithful!His promises are the same yesterday, today and forever!
Jeremiah rehearses the faithfulness of God.
I will hope in him…when reputation, position, calling, health, honor…when its all gone, what, and much more importantly, who will you hope in?
Thanksgiving night 2022 was the bottom of my lament as far as I can tell.
I was sorting through a box of old cards and letters.I opened one and read its content in disbelief and sheer anger.The words in the card cut like knife.I screamed in a combination of anger and agony.Everything in my life was upside down, and in that card were words of validation that no one else could know or would bother to listen to now.
Screamed > Punched the side of my fist into the counter > finished with a punch to the left side of my jaw.
I will not pretend it was wise.It wasn’t.It was foolish and incredibly painful.To this day this part of my hand sometimes tingles.
But that bottoming out opened my eyes to see where my only hope, and from whom my only hope could come from.It was an honest reckoning with reality that I could not escape.The only option now was to choose a path of bitterness or hope.I needed to lament instead of trying to act as though I had the strength all within myself to make it through this valley.
More necessary than calling to mind past words written in a card were the unchanging and unwavering words of God that brought me hope.
Our mind is very busy, all the time.What is filling your mind?The way to answer that question is, what are you calling to mind?Pounding the table and punching my own face were not actions of hope but of deep despair.The hope in lament gives birth to seeing a different future…
- Lament enables us to see the horizon…you are not cast off!
28 Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
29 let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope;
30 let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.
31 For the Lord will not
cast off forever,
32 but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33 for he does not afflict from his heart
or grieve the children of men.
Have you ever got low at the beach, and especially at sunrise?Some mornings the waves are choppier, more turbulent, and when you’re on the same level they cut your vision off; you can’t see past them.
But then there is a break in the waves, and on the horizon, you see it!The sun is there and rising! You may be surrounded by turbulence, but you can see!The sun is coming again!Darkness will end; light is coming!
"Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty." – Tim Keller
But what does it mean that God causes grief?Other translations read…
"But though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love." NIV
“Certainly, the Lord will not reject us forever!Even if he causes suffering, he will show compassion according to his abundant, faithful love.” – Lamentations 3:32 CSB
This verse expresses the idea that even though God may allow or permit grief and suffering, His compassion and mercy are still abundant. The emphasis is on the enduring love and mercy of God, even in the midst of difficult circumstances.
The idea that God could cause grief challenges our understanding. For all our questions, here is what we can be certain about based upon the character of God and the testimony of His Word; if God is allowing lament in our life, even if we are the cause of it, it is for a greater purpose…
Our Father will test us, refine us, prune us, and mold us, but he will NEVER abandon us!Ultimately, no matter the depth, duration or cause of our lament, the steadfast love of the Lord NEVER ceases; his mercies NEVER come to an end; they are new EVERY morning, GREAT IS HIS FAITHFULNESS! His compassion will ALWAYS triumph over judgment!
No matter how dark or deep your valley of Lament feels right now, the compassion of God accompanied by His plans to give you hope and a future are on the horizon line!
We go through times of lament because like Paul, our lives and the even the very salvation we possess is like a jar of clay in this life…
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed… - 2 Corinthians 4:7-9
Friends, there is a horizon line to your lament.Light is coming!
Conclusion…what do I do in my lament?
I’ve got a “Part 2” to this message entitled “Don’t Waste Your Lament”But for today…
- Express! – God can handle the raw, the unfiltered, the honest!He inspired others to write their laments; he can handle yours and mine.But the point is more to do with facing it, not burying our heads in the sand.
- Talk to Yourself (from Scripture) More than You Listen to Yourself!
"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." – Romans 8:38-39
- Move!
“If you’re going through hell, keep going!” – Winston Churchill
“I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” – Philippians 4:12-13
- Worship!
Your Love Never Fails (One Thing Remains) – Bethel Worship
GOSPEL CALL – LAMENT is HARD…LAMENT without Jesus is unfathomable! Might it be that God is using what you’re walking through to call you to Himself?