We the People of Johnson County Missouri - Friday, May 10, 2034 🎯/🧨/🙏🏻 Wins & Lamentations
Hi Folks!
I’ve been doing a book study on When You Pray with a group at the Cowboy Church. Last week we studied Prayers of Lamentation.
I’ll just say I wasn’t wild about starting this chapter. I HATE whining. Let me be clear: I did not say I never whine. I just hate it when I do because I start feeling wicked sorry for myself, the world turns bleak, the sun stops shining & turns into melted tar-goo and slimes itself from the sky.
So. I was not looking forward to this chapter.
The first time I read through the Bible and stumbled on the book of Lamentations, BOY!!! What a LOT of whining!!! I was exceptionally grateful it was only five chapters long because by Chapter 1, verse 4 I was already calling my doctor for a Zoloft prescription!
I was wrong. THIS WAS AN AMAZING CHAPTER FOR ME!!!
It wasn’t about the book of Lamentations. Much of what we learned was from the book of Psalms. Psalms?!?! I was puzzled, too, because I always read Psalms as an ANTIDOTE to being sad.
That’s what I learned about prayers of lamentation. Done right, these prayers will calm your terrified heart and bubble joy into your aching brain.
The way to lament is to tell God how you feel. For me that is sometimes a very loud or irritated prayer. Just saying. THEN, to tell God Who I know He is. WOW! So here’s an example of how that goes from Psalm 13 RREV (Rachel Revised & Edited Version)
How LONG, O Lord???? Will You forget me FOREVER?!?!? How LONG will you hide your face from me?
How LONG must I wrestle with my thoughts (about what’s happening in our country, how our kids are being lied to and taught to believe the lies, as a people we’re murdering our babies - then chopping them up and SELLING THEIR PARTS, and the people governing us are BEING PAID by lobbyists to promote that, how satan perverts our government leaders and laughs in Your Face…), and EVERY DAY have sorrow in my heart? How LONG will our enemies triumph over us????
LOOK ON ME, and answer O Lord my God. (Please! Give me YOUR attention. I SO need Your Love and Comfort.) Give Your Light to my eyes or I’m gonna die for real. (paraphrased)
My enemy will say, “I have OVERCOME her”, and my foes will rejoice when I fall. (Does this sound like our current political happenings with the Republican Convention, Jeff City Senate Leaders Caleb Rowden and Cindy O’Laughlin, and some of our local shenanigans?)
BUT…I TRUST IN YOUR UNFAILING LOVE; my heart REJOICES in Your Salvation;
I will sing to the Lord for HE HAS BEEN GOOD TO ME!!!!
Here’s what David did throughout the Psalms - he WHINED!!! THEN he coupled that with REMEMBERING WHO GOD IS!!! Our Savior, our Refuge, our Rock, our Shepherd, Johovah-Jireh our Provider, our Shelter from storms, He holds us in the Palm of His Hands, He shelters us with His Wings and it goes on and ON!!!
THAT’S HELPFUL WHINING!!
Here’s the equation for those of us who are into such things:
Whine + Remember Who God is and Praise Him with that realization = CALM & JOY
- or -
Whine + RWGIP = C&J
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! That’s PRODUCTIVE WHINING!!!!
Okay, I told you all that to tell you THIS….
One of the chapters in the When You Pray study talked about GROUP LAMENTATION.
It discussed Psalm 79 of Asaph who lamented over the exile of Israel that is recorded in 2 Kings 25. Asaph used the same format we discussed earlier where he absolutely unloaded his sadness, depression, anxiety and angst to God, then REMEMBERED the greatness of God, as well as all His other miraculous and loving attributes. And he led a GROUP of people in the prayer. It was a group prayer for all the Israelites to pray together.
You probably see where I’m headed with this.
As a GROUP, We the People can pray a lament which ends in PRAISE to God REGULARLY!
Here’s how Asaph’s lament in Psalm 79 goes:
v.1 - 8, Asaph tells the Lord the horrible things about their exile, starvation, people’s deaths, and the dire isolation of God’s anger/wrath on them.
v. 9, is the PIVOTAL POINT of the prayer. Asaph says, “Help us O God our Savior, for the GLORY OF YOUR NAME. Deliver us and atone for our sins for YOUR NAME’S SAKE.” In other words, “SAVE us God, because that brings GLORY TO YOU!!
v. 10 - 12, Asaph asks God to take vengeance on the people who have enslaved them! It’s OKAY to ask God to, “…pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times the reproach they have hurled at YOU, O Lord.” He acknowledged the evil being done to God’s people is evil done to GOD.
v. 13, PRAISE!!! “We Your people, the sheep of Your pasture, will PRAISE YOU FOREVER.
Do you talk with God every day? If so, would you add a Group Lament prayer for our country? If you don’t pray every day, would you start?
I’ll give an example of a Group Prayer for the United States, and you edit it to pour out YOUR heart to God.
Part of the prayer is similar to what Habakkuk prayed in 3:17 - 19 when the olive trees were dead, the grape vines rotted, the fields produced no food, and the sheep & cattle were either dead or stolen by ravaging armies. Habakkuk told God about the devastation in great detail and cried with a shattered heart to his God. He said, “…yet I will rejoice in the LORD. (Not circumstances, but because of GOD and Who He is!) I will be JOYFUL IN GOD my Savior.”
Group Lamentation Prayer Example:
Lord, thank You for inviting Your family to bring our sorrow to you. Tenderize our hearts as a community to grieve well over our own sin and the sorrow of this world.
Father, though China, the WEF and Biden’s administration is destroying our country, though our children are being corrupted in schools and our babies murdered, though our leaders worship themselves instead of You,
YET - we know YOU are GOD, and you hold Your children in Your Hand,
YOU are our REFUGE, our ever-present HELP in time of need, our STRENGTH, our PROVIDER.
YOU enable us to rise on wings like eagles, run and not grow weary, walk and not be faint.
Father, do evil to those who ignore and abuse Your Name, and obliterate them. Pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times the reproach they have hurled at You, O Lord, for YOUR NAME’s SAKE.
Then we your people, who are called CHRISTIANS, after YOUR Name, will praise You forever. We’ll teach our children and our grandchildren to PRAISE YOU. In Jesus’ Name, and for His Glory. Amen.
Our battle is NOT with flesh and blood. Please start today, if you have not already, and pour out your heart to God, then PRAISE Him for Who He is.
Calm & Joy = Whine + Remember Who God Is in PRAISE
PLEASE PRAY DAILY. PLEASE SHARE.
SEE YOU AT OUR NEXT WTP OF JOCO MEETING, MONDAY, 5/20, 7PM, Johnson County Fairgrounds!