Embracing lament: The prayer power in just one three-letter word
My job is difficult, but our work is important.
The mountain hike was challenging, but I made it to the top.
The coach can be mean, but I believe he cares about the players.
Her chatter gets under my skin, but no one has been kinder to me.
The week has been tough, but Saturday I can sleep in.
Probably everyone has spoken a sentence like one of these examples. In everyday life, we often live with two truths in stark contrast to each other, and we often connect them with a word crucial to our survival. But.
Too many, though, have not seen the beauty of “but” in their everyday prayers. They haven’t discovered how the word is key to praying in crisis. The Psalms can help us.
Mark Vroegop points this out. “In lament psalms,” he writes in Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, “the word but marks a critical and consistent turn toward trust.”
In an appendix he lists more than 20 examples from the Psalms, and elsewhere he highlights a few more from the book of Lamentations. Simply meditating on the verses he lists and examining them in context would encourage any reader to remember God’s ongoing faithfulness. And any reader can discover them on their own by using a free, web-based Bible research tool such as biblegateway.com.*
A good exercise might be to choose a few of these phrases and incorporate them into your own prayers.
My bills are mounting, and her condition is worsening, “but I trust in you” (Psalm 31:14).
I’m not sure whether to keep him at home or move him to a care facility, “but I call to God” (Psalm 55:16).
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all I’ve lost, “but you, O Lord are a God merciful and gracious” (Psalm 86:15).
I’m consumed by my daily duties, “but . . . my prayer is to you” (Psalm 69:13).
Such an exercise keeps us from the extremes of self-pity on the one hand and Pollyanna denial on the other. It allows God to use our suffering to mature us. We will acknowledge our grief, but we will not be undone by it. We will proclaim our faith in God without whitewashing our pain.
We will learn the transformative power of but as a centerpiece in many of our prayers. And we will discover peace.
Read: Psalm 86
Listen: “Abounding in Love—Psalm 86,” by Mike Janzen
Pray: “Turn to me and have mercy on me; show your strength in behalf of your servant; save me, because I serve you” (v. 16).
*Go to biblegateway.com. In the white search box, enter “but you,” or “but I” and select “Psalms” from the list of Bible books on the right. This will give you many examples.