ChosenRebel's Blog

I heard someone say, “Social Media Apps are Lament Platforms.”

It’s not my phrase, but when I heard it, something rang true and false in my ear at the same time. Like a chord misplayed, it hinted at something that was jarring and yet suggestive of something important and true. I wrote it down til I could think some more about it.

Before we try to answer the question, it is important to define terms. Let’s start with the Hebrew. 

The Hebrew word usually translated as LAMENT is סָפַד c̨âphad, saw-fad´;  to tear the hair and beat the breasts; to wail in mourning. It is a graphic word.

• Picture a man or woman who has violently lost a child, or seen a mother brutally killed before their eyes. What would that look like?
• Picture a man broken by the loss of his family in a terrible storm, or a woman in Bethlehem after the soldiers of Rome have come through and killed every baby boy under three. What would that look like?
• Picture a young wife learning that the man who pledged lifelong devotion and faithfulness just a few years before has been cheating on her with her best friend? What would that look like?
• Picture a man who has watched the investment of 20 years of work go up in flames in a house fire that consumed everything he ever owned. What would that look like?
• Picture a man or woman estranged from a child who has rejected everything they taught them and raised them to be. What would that look like?

Lament is what that looks like. saw-fad´ is the Hebrew word for it. Lament is . . .

-is the cry of a confused heart

-is the sorrowful sound of a violin in the hands of a forsaken musician

-is the anguish of loneliness shouted to a God who seems distant

-in the final emotional salvo hurled at God before the rising of hope

-is my heart breaking over the pain of my circumstances and longing for relief

-is my anguish at experiencing less of God than I want and far more than I deserve

-is the process whereby God shows me that I have replaced satisfaction in Him with an idol of my own making

-is my heart being drawn back to my first love by the pain of my present moment

Maybe you have traveled the road called Lament and didn’t have the words or the pictures to describe it. Maybe this has helped. Today, while I lament for our country and the men I mentor, I am praying for you and all those who lament or will lament, because life is hard sometimes, and it is good to know that we are not alone. And it is good to know that there is a God, the real God, who hears our cries, and sees our sorrow, and that He will use every tear and cry of the lips to purify us and fit us for heaven.  The story isn’t finished. He hears.