REVIEW of The God of All Comfort: THE LAMENT
Whether you have been going through The God of All Comfort with us from the beginning or joined us somewhere along the way, there is great value in review. If you have friends in fresh pain, invite them to join in — if not as participants, as readers. We’ll spend a few weeks in review.
Two questions prevail in the midst of suffering. “Why did this happen?” And, “How can I possibly get through this?” For the most part, The God of All Comfort addresses the second. You are in enormous pain. How will you make it?
We began with learning how to lament, as God gives us permission to do. This drawing by Andrew Dunn illustrates the grief we feel, the darkness and birds of prey around us, yet also the promise of rising hope. You can make it through the river of grief, and the lament is the tool God gives you to help you.
The most important thing to remember is that Satan wants you to back up from God, who is your only hope. The lament helps you not to back up.
1. Articulate what you have learned about the value of the lament, either from The God of All Comfort or the psalms themselves.
2. Do you remember the most common metaphor the psalmist uses for how he feels? (If not, you can find it in Psalm 18:4-5; Psalm 42:7 and in many of the hymns we have studied. Our closing hymn, What Wondrous Love, has it as well.) How does the fact that God understands this feeling help you?
3. A lament classically has three parts — the lament, the turn, and the remembrance of God’s character. Give an example from the psalms, or even from your own prayer journal.
4. There are also times when there is no turn, as in Heman’s Cry of Darkness in Psalm 88. How does he close his psalm? What does it mean to you that we can be free to be this honest with God?
5. How did Jesus lament on the cross?
6 Comment on a lamenting song like Blessed Be Thy Name or Come Lift Up Your Sorrows or one we’ve studied.
7. Are you incorporating the lament more into your prayer life? If so, how?
The Psalms reflect that “life is bipolar.”
Yesterday I had such a sweet time with my son and his wife and children — deep soul-satisfying conversations after a wonderful church service.
Then I came home to an e-mail that one of my dearest friends has cancer spread throughout her body.
Author William Brown says, “The psalms capture, better than any other corpus of Scripture, the bi-polar life of faith.”
First, in your quiet times in the next three days, connect with God. Look carefully at the song, the book, and the Scriptures. When you are ready, let’s hear your thoughtful reflections on the first three questions — and then, by Tuesday, let’s see if we are ready to go on to the rest of the questions. Take your time and ask God to help you to see.
Sing the first verse of “It is Well with My Soul” by heart and let it talk to your soul about trusting in sunshine and in storms. Begin memorizing the second verse.
If you have The God of All Comfort, read pages 12 through 14 and answer:
1. What did Philip Yancey have to learn about the psalms before he could use them correctly? (For those of you who don’t have the book, I trust your sisters will articulate this for you!)
2. Finish reading Psalm 18. How did God come to the rescue of the psalmist? What word pictures penetrate your heart?
3. Share a time when God came to your rescue — the sun came out, and you wanted to dance and sing!
4. Now read Psalm 88. How does this psalm end? This is where some of you are right now. The sun has not come out — and you wonder how you are going to make it. What word pictures penetrate your heart from Psalm 88?
5. Can you think of a time when Jesus might have felt like this?
6. What do you think about talking to God as the psalmist did in this psalm?
7. When we honestly express fear or despair to the Lord, is He angry? Base your answer on what you see in Scripture. What guidelines do you see for speaking to the Lord in Scripture? Think about what made Jesus angry repeatedly in the New Testament. (This is a challenging question, so cry out to a holy God for wisdom. (I will share — but want to hear from you first!
8. In The God of All Comfort, on page 14, I share my testimony on what I learned through the psalms. What was it? Have you experienced this?