When suffering strikes
Lament is our response.
Watch our Truth in Two to find out why (full text below)
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FULL TEXT
Blindsided. In American football, the word means the quarterback who is about to throw the ball to one side of the field is hit from his blind side. He never sees it coming. Being blindsided accurately describes unexpected grief in life. The awfulness of having one’s job taken without notice or reason, suffering the death of a loved one, or being given the diagnosis of cancer are only a few of the many ways humans are blindsided. Moments like these are times when we question unjust suffering and God Himself.
Undeserved suffering may be the first reason to reject belief in God. But if, as many First Testament scholars think, Job is the oldest book in The Bible, it would seem God addresses the problem early. Of course, the fact that God deals with the issue up front is no solace to our bereavement. Here is the onset of our grief. We can know our theology. But we still hurt, suffer, wail, howl, and scream our sorrow.
In the First Testament, lament is a poetic devise, a structure for expressing humanity’s crisis, travail, anguish, or despair. Ancient and modern people groups have their own laments—grief and outrage at humanly unjust circumstances. Job’s first verbal response to his situation in Job 3 is common to everyone, everywhere.
Lament is honest to who we are as humans. Lament acknowledges our weakness, our deficiency, our common experience. To be a Christian does not mean we stop being human. Being a Christian accentuates our humanity. We are committed to a righteous response to undeserved injustice. And we are committed to the raw, rasping recoiled reaction to pain when it happens to us.
Job was blindsided. There are times when each of us stands in line next to him. We share the suffering Job utters. Job’s cry in Job 3 is our own. Scripture gives our pain a voice in lament. My Truth in Two series during Fall 2022 is a tribute to our son Tyler Micah. We lament his death while desiring to give voice to all who suffer in any way.
[This material is drawn from a sermon I preached on Job 3 at Zionsville Fellowship (Indiana) the spring of 2008. A number of articles have used the same words and ideas since and can be found by searching for “lament” at MarkEckel.com where you can also find a tribute to my son.]
Thank you so much for sharing this, Brother. My family and I have experienced more blindside hits in the past 12 years than I care to recount. But slowly and surely, through it all, we are seeing God receive the glory as His plan plays out. Brutal hits are always reminders of our frailty, and sometimes they are wake up calls to help us experience His Best for us. Thankfully, He is always there to pick us up and hold us, for as long as we need.
Thank you for sharing your heart and wisdom with all of us. Your experience will be a guide to many when we too find ourselves blindsided in the future or trying to process past hurt. Love you, brother.