Small Group Questions:

1. Who is the most authentic/real person you know? What makes them so authentic/real?
2. Is there anyone in your life you feel fully comfortable in letting your guard down around? Who can you share all of your feelings with? Why are you comfortable around this person?
3. What do you think it looks like for someone to be completely honest and vulnerable with God?
4. Do you think it’s easier for people to hide their feelings of distress, grief, pain, fear, etc. from God and others or is it easier to be open with God and others? What makes it so?
5. When have you felt like God was distant?
6. What is one step you can take this week in being more vulnerable with God and allowing him into the inner most parts of your life, even when it’s messy?

THE MAIN POINT

Lament is how we bring our real pain to a faithful God. God invites us to be brutally honest with Him in our pain, and meet Him there.

THE BIBLE

Psalm 13

THE CONTEXT

The Psalms of Lament are often identified as the largest category of Psalms. They illustrate communal and individual cries to God. These Psalms serve to express a variety of feelings from distress to a heartfelt plea for divine intervention and everything in between, including, but not limited to, grief, fear, illness, injustice, and spiritual desolation. Psalms of lament model how genuine faith includes sorrow, doubt, and grief. They reveal a faithful way of bringing pain before the Lord. Ultimately, this genre of Psalm is one of disorientation. They tend to reveal a God who is present in, participating in, and attentive to the darkness, weakness, and displacement of life.

Psalm 13 is divided into three movements of decreasing levels of distress. Most likely, this Psalm was written during David’s time as a fugitive from King Saul (1 Samuel 21-24). The set of questions in the first two verses are not to be taken as doctrine. This Psalm communicates emotion. We know that God never leaves or abandons us; however, if we are honest with ourselves, sometimes we feel as though he has. These are the feelings the Psalmist is experiencing. In verses 4 and 5, the Psalmist moves to petitioning God, imploring him to answer his cry for help. He then moves on to declaring his trust in the Lord. David trusts that God will eventually deliver him because he remembers the Lord’s rescuing and goodness. It is upon reflecting on what God has done that David is able to move from distress to trust.

THE CORE

As you prepare the core of the message using personal story and questions, keep in mind these points:

• These kinds of Psalms allow space for all feelings. Not just the “positive” ones. They encourage us to be real with God and real with one another. God is big enough for and is not scared by our feelings of fear, distress, grief, etc. God welcomes your real emotions. He would rather have your honesty than your pretending.
• God is good all the time. He never abandons us, even when we feel like he has. Just like David, when we feel distress and like God is distant, it might help to remember who he is and what he has done in the past. In those moments it is important not to dismiss feelings, but it is also important not to let them define reality.

THE APPLICATION

As you prepare the application, challenge and/or encouragement, keep in mind these points:

• This Psalm and all Psalms of lament encourage us to come honestly before God rather than concealing emotions of despair or frustration.
• The structure of lament – address to God, complaint, petition, confession of faith or praise – teaches us that sorrow and hope can coexist, motivating authentic faith in God’s promises.
• Offering a broken spirit to God can be a profound act of worship, as hope often emerges from the confession of neediness.
• Psalms of lament also remind us of the necessity of being real with one another. This should move us toward unity in seasons of trial. Sharing burdens fosters a collective turning toward God.
• “The Tool of Lament”:
  • “God, here’s what I feel…”
  • “Here’s what’s wrong…”
  • “Here’s what I need…”
  • “But I trust you because…”