Why am I discouraged?
Why is my heart so sad?
(Psalm 42:11)
I’m a “glass half-full” kind of guy—an optimist to the core. But right now, my vocabulary is most accurately aligned with the Psalmist. I’m sad. At times, discouraged.
That’s a really hard thing for an optimist to say. But it’s also a very important thing for an optimist to say.
Faith in God is not an invitation into delusion. No—it’s a firm grounding in reality without despair.
Throughout my life, I have either ignored or overlooked the significance and importance of lament—of appropriately focused sadness. Aching because things are not as they should be doesn’t make me a pessimist or a fatalist. It doesn’t undermine my optimistic bent.
The Apostle Paul articulated this well in Romans 8:
For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.
(Romans 8:19–22)
The whole of creation—groaning. Aching. Hurting. Lamenting.
Not because we don’t have a good God, but because we do have a good God.
Not because God has disappeared, but because we have chosen darkness instead of his light.
My sadness has roots. A legacy.
The book of Exodus gives story to this sadness: brickmaking by God’s chosen; hatred in a position of power.
Lament erupted.
…and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help.
(Exodus 2:23a)
Desperation. Oppression. Hopelessness.
A plea. A prayer.
And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
(Exodus 2:24–25)
God heard.
God remembered.
God saw.
… and God knew.
Seldom does the resolution to our lament include a nicely shaped bow on top of our pain and sorrow. No—it comes unfailingly and faithfully, like it did for the enslaved Jews in Egypt.
Whatever you face. Wherever you are. In the middle of the sorrow or lament…
God hears.
God remembers.
God sees.
… and yes, God knows.
And that, my friends, is enough.
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