Complain or lament?
We need to talk.
2020's been pretty terrible, and given the state of things, it's probably going to get worse next year. I don't need to rehearse all that's gone wrong. You know the deal. COVID, racism, rioting, job loss, politicians, lies, manipulation. It doesn't seem to be getting better either.
I gotta confess it's pretty terrible being a scientist in this world. As a creationist, I'm used to being mocked by the establishment. It comes with the territory. You sort of learn to live with it. Even with all that, I still wasn't prepared for my friends and acquaintances turning on me so quickly. I've been called a "mask nazi," "naive," "evil," "arrogant." People have told me I'm helping out the deep state conspiracy to overthrow the government, take away all our rights, usher in the globalist new world order. It's hateful, spiteful nonsense.
You see, when you attack scientists, I'm one of them. You're attacking me. I can't avoid taking it personally. It's me you're talking about whether you know it or not. I'm looking at stuff on Facebook, and I'm thinking, "I can't believe you wrote that." People who otherwise seem so kind and decent are posting the most foul and obnoxious things. All directed at my own professional, informed opinions. At me.
Meanwhile my friend Kim died of COVID out of the blue. She wasn't even in the hospital. My parents were exposed but miraculously did not become ill. And more than 200,000 people in the US alone have had their lives snuffed out.
I confess I haven't been dealing with it very well. I've posted a bit about COVID here and on Facebook. But for the most part, I've kept my mouth shut and held it all in. And you know what's coming: I turned into this simmering pot of rage and grief and depression. Then one night I was trying to fold the laundry, and my wife asked me if I was OK, and that was all it took. I told her it would be a long time before I was OK. The pot finally boiled over, and all that rage came gushing out.
So I quit Facebook. Mostly. I check in here and there to make sure no one's sending me messages, but I don't browse it any more. I don't need that. I holed up in my office for a week and hardly talked to anyone. I've been listening to music and doing busy work.
As I've been struggling to get out of this depression, I've been focusing a lot on biblical lament. There's nothing new about what I'm experiencing. Grief and sorrow and suffering is part of the believer's experience. It's part of Jesus' experience. Through my own lament, I'm starting to heal just a tiny bit.
Now I have a little insight I want to share. Very little. I'm still angry, and I'm still sad. But I see part of where I've been going wrong all this time, and that's worth a warning to others.
When we come to the Bible and look at complaining, it's really a fascinating study in contrasts. The Israelites wandering in the wilderness complained all the time. They wanted to go back to Egypt. They wanted to get rid of Moses. Moses was gone receiving the covenant, and they made a new god to worship. They were always looking for someone to blame. They were always trying to fix their own problems.
And that complaining was their death. Fiery serpents, plagues, battles, wandering in the wilderness. They dropped like flies. It literally killed them.
Then there's Job. He suffered as much if not more than the rebellious Israelites, and his complaints seem just as bitter. "I wish I had never been born," he said. But there was a big difference. Job directed his grief at the one person who could actually help him out. Why did you do this to me, God? Don't you care that I'm suffering? If only I could talk to you, I would tell you why I don't deserve this pain.
Then God showed up in a terrifying tornado and started asking questions Job couldn't begin to answer. And when that was all over he commended Job for speaking the truth.
So I'm looking around now, and I see a lot of complaining. People complain about the government or racists or globalists or scientists or politicians or whatever. I complain about people treating other people terribly. I complain about people being selfish and foolish. We're all very busy focusing our anger on someone in the here and now. Someone that in all honesty isn't going to be able to do much of anything to change our circumstances. And so we rage about the wickedness and injustice.
I rage.
And that's death. Peter's looking at the storm while he's sinking. The Israelites are belly-aching about their belly aches, all while the fire of God consumes them. Zedekiah fears what the people of Jerusalem will do to him, but Nebuchadnezzar's army is coming. Death is coming.
True biblical lament focuses on God. It is a complaint to God, the one who can actually change things. True biblical lament can be pretty bitter, sometimes even shockingly so. But pouring out that grief to God brings healing. Lament turns to praise. You re-discover God's compassion and the grief of his heart too. The incarnation reminds us that God does not stand apart and aloof from our sorrow. He entered into that sorrow and suffered with us. Even when it seems like he's completely absent, maybe especially when it seems like he's completely absent, God is still at work.
So that's the choice. Lament or complain. Holy grief or common rage.
Life or death.
What will you do? God help me lament. God help us all.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?
Why are you so far from saving us,
from the words of our groaning?
O my God, people are dying.
The people have rejected your grace.
They scoff at your truth, your justice, your righteousness.
Don't you care?
I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
Won't you answer?
Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of your people.
In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
Because of your loving kindness we are not consumed.
Great is your faithfulness.
So deliver us from evil, O God.
Bring us into your kingdom.
Maranatha, Lord, come quickly.
Come and save.
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