How to Reconcile a Good God with a Hard Life – Mark Vroegop

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Today® with Dave and Ann Wilson; Podcast Transcript

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How to Reconcile a Good God with a Hard Life

Guest: Mark Vroegop

Release Date: August 14, 2025

Dave (00:00:00):

How can a powerful and loving God allow evil?

Mark (00:00:02):

Some people think that, in order for Christianity to be real, those two things have to reconcile.

Ann (00:00:06):

Yeah.

Mark (00:00:07):

The answer for that person is: “God is good, and life is hard. In the Bible, they don’t reconcile; they just are. The Psalms of lament show us those two things actually coexist in the Christian faith.

Dave (00:00:25):

Let’s talk about a topic we all need to talk about—and we all need to do—but a lot of us don’t understand. That’s how I would introduce—

Ann (00:00:35):

Is that your little tease?

Dave (00:00:36):

—to this topic. No, I mean we got Mark Vroegop back with us, talking about something that you think is really important for the Christian community to understand. Right now, everybody’s like, “What is this?” I’m going to throw it to you: “What is it, Mark?”

Mark (00:00:53):

We’re here to talk about lament—the language that God’s people have historically used and is all over the Bible—of how you pray and talk to God when life falls apart.

Dave (00:01:06):

There you go. We’ll see you next week.

Mark (00:01:08):

There we go.

Ann (00:01:10):

And that is a new word. I feel like people haven’t been using that word until recently, but we’ve all done it; we’ve all experienced it. But why do you think it’s important now? Because you’re writing about it, you’ve experienced it.

Mark (00:01:24):

I have. For most of us, we don’t set out on a academic discovery of the language of lament. For most of us, lament finds us—we have an event, a situation, a pain, a tragedy—and when a Christian’s walking through that, they’re trying to figure out: “How do I grieve and still cling to what I believe? How do I cry, but how do I hope?” The prayer form that we end up experiencing is lament. For most of us, this category explains what’s happened in the past or explains what we’ve been trying to do; that was my experience. After writing Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, and talking with so many grieving people, the overwhelmingly consistent comment that I hear from people is: “Your book just explained the last couple years of my life.”

Dave (00:02:18):

Wow.

Mark (00:02:19):

So lament usually finds us because we’re not familiar with this language—and yet, it’s a grace—it’s all over the Bible. Think of this: one out of every three Psalms are laments. God intended for us to have this language to talk to Him when life really gets hard. The challenge is that, for many of us, we haven’t heard about it; we don’t know it. But when it’s explained, we go, “Oh, that’s actually what’s been going on.” And in doing so, we find some amazing grace.

Dave (00:02:46):

It’s interesting—I watch you all over the internet—we do our homework and research. You made that comment about a third of the Psalms are lament. A lot of our worship singing in church are the Psalms. Have you ever heard any lament-singing worship songs? It’s very rare, isn’t it?

Mark (00:03:06):

They’re certainly out there; but unfortunately, the percentage of laments in the Bible do not reflect the percentage of songs that we sing. I don’t want to say one out of every three songs has to be lament in its orientation. We also don’t hear lament-oriented prayers; and as a result, we’re very unfamiliar with this language. Instead, for most of us in a Western American version of Christianity, we think that the standard of what it means to be a Christian is always be positive and encouraging. In fact, there’s radio stations that that’s their monicor [enthusiastic voice]: “Positive and encouraging,” which, okay, I get it.

Dave (00:03:45):

Hey, you just did a radio voice too.

Ann: That sounded really good.

Mark (00:03:47):

Okay, I can do—I’ll do another one—ready? [Deeping voice] “Welcome to Dark and Dreary.” Who’s going to listen to that radio station?

Dave: “Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy.”

Ann (00:03:57):

Well , it’s funny—because I remember a businessman; he was in his 60s. He said, “I don’t even like David—everything I read about him—he seems like such a whiner. And when you read the Psalms, he’s just always lamenting.”

Dave: Hey, Mark, I got to tell you—

Mark: You’re [Dave] getting out your guitar right now?

Dave (00:04:12):

Here we go.

Mark: Okay. For those who can’t see this, you’re just going to hear it.

Ann (00:04:17):

This is why you need to watch this.

Dave (00:04:19):

I am not kidding. I was watching you preach somewhere—it might’ve been at your church; I don’t know—you made that comment that there aren’t any worship songs that are sort of based like the Psalms. I thought, “I’m just going to go—and you were referencing Psalm 77—literally, an hour ago, I opened up Psalm 77. I’m in our bedroom, and Ann’s like, “You’re not going to do that on there.”

Ann: Mark’s face is like, “What is happening?!”

Mark (00:04:45):

I really don’t know what’s happening now.

Dave: They can always edit it out.

Mark: I’m actually going to pull my camera out and take a picture of this while you do this.

Dave: You can do whatever you want to do.

Ann: Has this never happened for an interview?

Mark: No, this has never happened, probably, in the history of mankind; so this is a moment right here. So yeah, that’s awesome.

Dave (00:05:02):

Here’s the thing: I don’t even know where it’s going to go.

Mark (00:05:02):

Okay, those are the best songs.

Dave (00:05:06):

But I literally opened Psalm 77; I thought [singing]: “When I remember God, I moan.” That’s a lament.

Ann: “I moan.”

Dave: [Singing] “When I meditate, my spirit faints.” [Musical interlude] “Has the steadfast love forever ceased?” See, I’m probably getting too happy so far.

Mark (00:05:39):

No, you’re not. You’re doing a great job, actually.

Dave (00:05:41):

[Singing] “Are His promises ended for all time?” And then, you can just feel him; he’s like: “Has God forgotten to be gracious?” Has He, in anger, shut up His compassion? Then, I said, ‘I will appeal to the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember You are the One—

Ann: Oh, this feels a little more up now.

Dave: Well, he’s getting—

Mark: Well, he turned.

Ann: Yes, yes.

Dave: [Singing] “I will ponder on Your work and meditate on Your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy; what god is great like our God?”

Ann: Wow!

Dave: Anyway, that’s what came to me this morning. I’m like, “There aren’t songs written like that.” I don’t know if anybody’s singing that at church; but what do you think, Mark?” You’re dumbfounded over there. He’s speechless; look at that!

Mark (00:06:58):

Yeah, I’m actually pretty emotional; that’s really amazing.

Dave (00:07:01):

Wow.

Mark (00:07:02):

[Emotion in voice] I just wish a lot more people would do that; seriously, those words are so important.

Ann (00:07:14):

Mark, will you read it? Read it; at least, the beginning.

Dave (00:07:18):

That is not the response I thought it was going to get.

Mark (00:07:23):

Well, it’s really—it’s actually—it’s the vision of why I wrote Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy is to have that happen. I couldn’t do what you just did. I thought you were joking, but that was legit; that was an amazing song. And yet, it’s so important; because we are very unfamiliar with the kind of words that you’ve just sung.

Here’s what Psalm 77. It’s 20 verses; you want me to do them all, or what do you want me to do?

Ann (00:07:57):

No, do the beginning; do the ones that you resonate with.

Mark (00:08:01):

“I cry aloud to God, aloud to God; and He will hear me. In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord. In the night, my hand is stretched out, without wearying; but my soul refuses to be comforted. When I remember God, I moan; and when I meditate, my spirit faints. You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled I cannot speak. I consider the days of old, the years long ago. I said, ‘Let me remember my song in the night. Let me meditate in my heart.’ And then, my spirit made a diligent search.”

Here’s six rhetorical questions that would freak most people out if anybody prayed them in a small group: “’Will the Lord spurn forever?’ ‘Will He never again be favorable?’ ‘Has His steadfast love forever ceased?’ ‘Are His promises at an end for all times?’ ‘Has God forgotten to be gracious?’ ‘Has He, in anger, shut up His compassion?” Then, here’s the turn—every lament has a pivot—“Then I said, ‘I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the Lord.” He’s taking those rhetorical questions—that he knows aren’t true, but they feel true—and that’s the thing with laments: there are things in life that feel true that you know aren’t true. The question is: “What do you do with them?”; lament is the answer: “You pray them; you talk to God about them; you sing them.”

“I’ll remember the work of the Lord. I’ll remember Your wonders of old. I will ponder Your work and meditate on Your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders. You’ve made known Your might among the people. You have redeemed Your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.”

This is my favorite part: “ When the water saw You, O God, when the water saw You, they were afraid. Indeed, the deep trembled; the clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; Your arrows flashed on every side; the crash of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; Your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook.” Here’s the money passage: “Your way was through the sea; Your path through the great waters. Yet, your footprints were unseen. You led Your people, like a flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.”

(00:10:23)

The reason why that concluding part is so important is because, in the Old Testament, the signature redemptive event was the exodus. That’s what he’s talking about there at the end. He takes his heart back—he takes questions like: “Has God forgotten to be gracious?” Has He shut up His compassion?”—He takes all of that mess, and he brings it back to the most foundational truth that he knows, which is: “God delivered us; we’re His people. He led us through the Red Sea.”

In the New Testament, that moment is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Laments eventually lead us to the bedrock of our faith, which is: “The Man of sorrows can handle our questions; He can handle our pain. He’s the one that prayed on the cross: ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’”—Psalm 22; prayed lament. At the end of the day, our hope is that Jesus bought the right to make it right. Lament is the language that helps us get to that point that we could again say, “That’s true. I’m really struggling; and sometimes, I have doubts; but this is true.” Laments, as I define it in the book, are prayers and pain that lead to trust.

Oh, that there would be more people who would write songs like that. I think there are a boatload of people in our churches who need to know that: A) they could sing like that, as far as saying those words; and B) know that this is actually a pathway that leads to hope. It’s not a cul-de-sac of sorrows, where we just are always stuck in our grieving.

Ann (00:11:36):

That’s a really good point.

Mark (00:11:37):

This is a conduit that leads us to mercy and grace. That’s why that’s a really remarkable moment to have that kind of song out of Psalm 77. Think of this: that for generations, this was the songbook. That’s what they did; they put to music the very words of God. Think of that: one out of every three songs that are sung have that kind of tone—despair, difficulty—and yet, so full of hope.

Dave (00:12:07):

Literally, when I heard you say that in your sermon, that’s why I grabbed my guitar off the wall, and said, “Why don’t we sing these?” I get it; they can be a little depressing. But they also—

Ann: But we feel depressed.

Dave: —bring life when you/when the song goes to the turn. You’re reminded and man, man, what you just said in the last three minutes is a clip we have to put on YouTube. That was like: “Boom!” That was as well-said as I’ve ever heard it.

Ann (00:12:35):

I sat there and just cried; because all of us—every single listener—is experiencing pain at some point in their lives. If it’s not right now, it will be in the future—one out of three Psalms—probably one third of our life, if not more, is really hard.

Mark (00:12:52):

I don’t mean to be cute when I say this, but I do think it’s helped to reset people’s expectations. We talked about yesterday: if one out of every three Psalms are songs of lament, you might think that one out of every three days of your life you’re going to have sorrows or difficulties. I think part of the reason why lament is not a language that a lot of Christians today understand—at least, in the spaces in which we live and operate—is because they have a wrong view of what the successful Christian life looks like.

Ann (00:13:20):

—especially, in America.

Mark (00:13:22):

You can go globally and find believers who understand lament as an intuitive language. You can look at American history: if you were to find the genre that expresses lament in American music history, look no further than African-American spirituals.

Ann (00:13:37):

That’s what I was going to say.

Mark (00:13:37):

So when people are in a hard place, and they feel like there’s no hope in this world, this is the language that they use. It’s so incredibly life-giving, both as individuals and for an entire corporate gathering of God’s people.

Dave (00:13:53):

When you said that, I was thinking: “When I came to Christ in college—I don’t think anybody told me this—I just perceived, ‘Now, life will be easy and good; it’ll be awesome.’ If my mentor had said, ‘Hey, by the way, you just signed up for, every third day, get ready for a hard struggle that God’s going to prove Himself to you,’ I’d be like, ‘Wait, wait, wait; I’m not signing up for that!’ But that’s what I signed up for.” You think Jesus will just make it all smooth; and it’s going to be easy—the prosperity-type gospel—and it’s like, “Yeah, that’s not what you signed up for. You signed up for a real struggle with Jesus in the boat.”

Mark (00:14:33):

Part of the reason that I’m passionate about this subject is—not just to help people who are grieving or to explain a biblical category—but one out of every three days being difficult isn’t just a Christian experience; that’s a human experience. It seems to me that Christians ought to be the best interpreters of pain, sorrow, and difficulties. This is our language; and we know the story—the redemptive arc of creation, fall, redemption, restoration—we know the story. We know that there’s coming a day when we won’t sing laments anymore. I don’t know what songs we’re going to sing in heaven. It would be pretty cool—if I’m Keith and Kristen Getty—and we’re singing In Christ Alone in heaven. Imagine your song: it made it into the top 50 with the angels, right?

Dave: I don’t think so!

Mark: “Hey, there’s this guy who wrote this song; we’re going to sing it together”; imagine that.

But there’s a whole genre of songs we won’t sing anymore, because our faith will be sight; our sorrows will be no more. But in the meantime, this is our language. This is our moment to say, “Look, the Christian faith can handle death, sorrow, and the most difficult questions. In fact, this language is a means to help us in our, long and sometimes difficult, pilgrimage.

Ann (00:15:42):

Take us back to when lament became a new language for—

Dave: —dark clouds.

Ann: Take us to the dark clouds.

Mark (00:15:48):

Man, your song just tripped me. I need to kind of regroup my emotions here. It’s funny how, when something’s so passionate to you, it kind of opens up a file; and you’re like, “Wow, that’s really, really impactful.”

Ann (00:16:01):

Music does that too, doesn’t it?

Mark (00:16:02):

I does. That’s the other thing: it’s just even processing this moment—I’ve taught

Psalm 77 how many times?—but hearing it in a song is just really powerful.”

Ann (00:16:11):

Let me say too—it was so funny—I was spending time with God this morning. I go through the one-year Bible every year. Listen to what today’s Psalm was—69/Psalm 69—listen to this; I thought this is so appropriate for—

Dave (00:16:26):

You want me to sing this one?

Ann (00:16:28):

This is so appropriate for our discussion today. This is a Psalm of David: “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out. My throat is parched; my eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. More in number, than the hairs of my head, are those who hate me without cause. Mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies. What I did not steal, must I now restore? O God, you know my folly, the wrongs I have done and not hidden from You. Let not those who hope in You be put to shame through me. O Lord, God of hosts, let not those who seek You be brought to dishonor through me.”

This is like real stuff! It makes me wonder: “How often are those my prayers?—‘These people hate me, God. Maybe, it’s because I’m just messed up,’”—I’ve prayed those prayers.

Dave (00:17:35):

There’s part of me—Mark, I’d love to hear you talk about that—that runs away from that/avoids it. I don’t want to feel sad; I don’t want to complain—

Ann (00:17:47):

—like the guy who said David’s a whiner.

Dave (00:17:50):

—should I? Am I allowed to?—yeah; the guy said David’s a whiner. So often, part of my—I think my family of origin’s brokenness, with two alcoholic parents, and divorce, and adultery, and all that, as I was a little boy—I think part of me, from that pain for a lot of my life, I just buried it. I didn’t talk about it, didn’t even acknowledge it: “I’m good; I’m an athlete.” It’s like, “No; you got to step into the, like you said, dark clouds and process it. What better way to process it than with God?”

But as I became a Christian—this is where we’re going today—I thought, “I can’t remember the process with Him. Nobody complains to God; nobody yells at God.” I hadn’t read the Bible that well, so I didn’t know it was all over the Bible. I just thought, “That’s one place you can’t do that. Maybe, you can do it alone; or maybe, with your spouse or a really good friend; but never with God, because He’s going to turn His face away from you.” I think a lot of believers feel that way—that they cannot lament—that it’s not spiritual to lament.

Mark (00:18:51):

Absolutely; yeah. There’s so much for us to unpack in that. Earlier, you asked me about how I came to this; should I go there? And then, I can answer your question.

Dave (00:19:02):

Yeah, start there.

Mark (00:19:03):

I think that context is a bit instructive. We have twin boys. My wife carried our twins to 39-and-a-half weeks. When they were born, they were six pounds, seven ounces; six pounds, eleven ounces.

Ann (00:19:17):

That’s big for twins.

Mark (00:19:18):

My wife’s like five foot; three inches. So then, we had another son; she carried him full term—beautiful pregnancy—no problems. For us, pregnancy equals “Easy.” And then, our third pregnancy: a few days before delivery, my wife woke me up, and said, “Something doesn’t feel right. Baby hasn’t moved, I don’t think; and I’m going to jump in the shower.”

There’s a bigger backstory; it felt like the Lord had been preparing me for suffering of some kind. I began doing some study and some reading on suffering, at a deeper level. She got in the shower; I dropped to my knees, and said, “Lord, please not this.” I just had this sense like, “Oh, my goodness.” I was just afraid, and I was anxious.

Well, sure enough, we get to the doctor’s office. They put that little—I don’t know what it’s called—but that thing that you hear the baby’s heartbeat. Longest three minutes of my life as the doctor is just searching. I’m like, “God, please, please, please; let me just hear that sound,”—that [making static sounds]. There was just deafening silence. We go into the ultrasound room. We see our baby in the womb; and he puts it over her heart, and he’s like, “I’m sorry I tell you this, but her heart has stopped. Your child has died.” It just rocked my world.

So then—I’ll fast forward through some things—my wife has to give birth to a deceased child; she has to go through all the things of labor. And then, we have a couple years of multiple miscarriages, even one where we thought we were pregnant; numbers were going up. We go into the room to see the heartbeat; this is supposed to be celebration day only to have—in the same room, with the same doctor, in the same chair—him say, “I’m sorry, but you have a blighted ovum. You’ve caught a miscarriage before it’s happened.” In the book, I talk about that’s when my wife and I went to our car in the parking lot. I asked her if she could pray; and she said, “I’ll try.” She said, God, I know You’re not mean, but it feels like it today.” What is that?—that’s a lament.

And then, we finally got pregnant again. It was the longest nine months of our life—because I lost the husband card, to say, “Honey, I’m sure nothing’s going to happen”; because it had—that nine months was just a battle to believe and trust. And today, by God’s grace, we have a 19-year-old daughter, Savannah, who was born after our stillbirth daughter, stillborn daughter, Sylvia.

As a pastor, I’m still preaching and teaching; I’m marrying and burying—all the things. I’m trying to put together what I believe about God: “He is sovereign,” “He is good,” “He is holy,” “He has really good purposes,” and “My life is really hard, and I don’t know if I can do this. What if my wife’s never happy again? What if this is the last story?—it’s death and a grave.” I’m in between these two worlds. And then, I find that Christians are really unintentionally unhelpful. They’re trying to paper over our pain or our questions with: “Well, God can trust you with this”; I’m like: “Okay; well, it doesn’t feel like I am trustworthy,” or “Maybe, more people will come to Christ,” “Well, that’d be great; except I’d rather have a living daughter, to be honest.” People were not helpful in kind, but ill-informed, ways.

I started just to wrestle with this: “How do you live between the poles of a really hard life but trusting in God’s providence and His sovereignty? How do you live with two of those things?” I found that, on most Christian experiences, it’s either/or—either life is all bad; God’s dealt me an unfair deck—or it’s we trust in His sovereignty, and we ignore how painful it is.

Dave (00:23:02):

Yeah, that’s what I did.

Mark (00:23:06):

It’s what most/many Christians do.

I started teaching on it—exploring this a little bit—and then, I was like, “Oh, wait a minute. What’s been going on in my life, all these years, is lament; that’s what it is.” I didn’t have a category for it at the time; I was just trying to survive, trying to live out my theology, while in pain. I started teaching on some of the darker Psalms; I taught through the book of Lamentations.

This book came out of real world conversations with hurting people who, after service, were like, “Hey, is there anything else on this? I need to explore this further.” Eventually, I got so tired of saying, “I really don’t know that there is.” That’s when I decided: “I need to put this into some kind of published form.” The title, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy comes from the juxtaposition in the book of Lamentations—Chapter 2: the Lord has set us under a dark cloud; and Lamentations 3: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies are new every morning,”—I think the Christian life is lived in the tension between those two realities: dark clouds often; always deep mercy; and there’s grace for the in-between time; it’s the language of lament.

Ann (00:24:13):

I’m just teary about the whole conversation. I know so many people who have suffered so much. I’m just imagining the couple that we know, that their baby was just still-born. Here’s the thing that happens: I’ve seen so many people walk away from God as a result.

Mark (00:24:29):

Oh, absolutely.

Ann (00:24:30):

I’m not sure how to encourage them. What would you say to that? There are so many that: “If this is who God is, I’m out.” Is it because we haven’t learned to lament? What is that, and how can we encourage them or come alongside them?

Mark (00:24:48):

So two things on that. Number one: I think you’ve had Garrett Kell on your program here. Garrett told me and our friends that he had an intern, who made an incredible observation: “He connected some dots for me.”

Dave (00:25:00):

An intern? Alright!

Mark (00:25:01):

An intern, yes.

They were reading this book; and he said, “I think some people deconstruct their faith because they don’t know how to lament.”

Dave (00:25:08):

Oh, that’s so true; that is insightful.

Ann: Me too!

Mark (00:25:11):

One of the hardest things is: if you’ve had pain, but you don’t know what to do with it, you begin to think that Christianity isn’t legit. I was like, “Wow, that’s actually really, really helpful.” I think pain creates a tension point of: “How do I live with the fact of what I believe and my experiences don’t seem to match?” The answer for that person is: “God is good, and life is hard. Those two things actually coexist in the Christian faith.”

Some people think that, in order for Christianity to be real, those two things have to reconcile; but in the Bible, they don’t reconcile; they just are. The Psalms of lament show us that: in the exact same Psalm, the psalmist can say: “How long, O Lord,”—Psalm 13—”have You forgotten me? Will You forget me forever?” And then four verses later, say, “But I have trusted in Your mercy; I will sing.” It is the fact that Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday are both part of the Christian faith. Part of it is helping people understand that: if you think that Christianity is only resurrection, then you miss that the cross was necessary. If you think Christianity’s only the cross, you miss the resurrection hope. You have to have both, and the Bible has words and language that describes that.

For your friend, I would say, “Listen to these words in the Bible: ‘Save me, for the waters have come up to my neck.’ The Bible actually, empathetically, understands the pain that you’re walking through—in a variety/kinds of brokenness in the world—and pain tests what it is that we really believe about God. Some people think that lament is to be faithless. It’s actually one of the most faith-filled things that you can do; it’s one of the most theologically-informed things to do. I think this was Todd Billings, who said this: “It’s precisely out of our theology that we offer complaints to the Lord; because if we believed that He wasn’t good, or we believed He wasn’t sovereign, then why lament? It’s just the normal thing of life: ‘Bad stuff happens; get over it. Live free; die— just party—whatever; because life is filled with no connecting dots.’”

But if the Psalmist believes that God is good, and he believes that He’s sovereign, then the world in which he lives doesn’t fit with his knowledge of who God is. That’s precisely why the Psalmist takes the complaints to God, and says to Him, “This is hard; and yet, I know you’re good. But these don’t mesh; they don’t reconcile.” I think that vision of Christianity is really important; because some people think that, once you come to Christ, you just have all the abundant life. That is not the story: by much suffering and tribulation we enter the kingdom.

Dave (00:28:17):

I had a woman come up to me at my son’s ministry—what?—two months ago, after the service I had preached for my son, that Sunday night. I don’t even remember what I preached about. She just came up, and said, “I do not believe that God will ever allow suffering and pain. I have so much suffering and pain in my life, and that’s not what the Bible says. That is not—and I need out—I need answers.”

I should have been compassionate and tender—and I don’t know what her suffering and pain was—I just looked at her, and said, “That is not at all what the Bible says. That is not the Bible. Where have you heard that?” “I’ve heard that at the other churches I go to.” I go, “They are lying to you.” I should have been nice; I had heard her say this to so many people; I’m like, “I am going to tell her the straight truth that is not in Scripture. Lament, pain, suffering is part of life; and part of the Christian life in navigating that.” She just looked at me, like, “Okay, I don’t want your theology”; and she walked away. I’m like, “Okay; I just told her the truth.”

Ann (00:29:26):

And I had already told her many times;—

Dave: —many times.

Ann: —because she’s saying, “I was promised that, when I give my life to Jesus, I will have wealth; I will have a great job; I will have an abundance of friendship; and I would not be suffering like I am, right now, in depression.” And I said, “But if you read the Scriptures,”—you have to be in the Scriptures—”to see that all the heroes of the Bible felt all of those hard things of suffering; and yet, God was with them; and He’s with you.” But man, when she had that image of: “I should be wealthy, successful…”—phew!

Dave (00:30:01):

And that’s sort of the God we manufacture, isn’t it?—

Ann (00:30:05):

—the genie in the bottle, maybe.

Dave (00:30:06):

—in the church or outside the church.

Ann (00:30:08):

You can’t see—if you’re watching this on YouTube; you can just look at Mark’s face, saying, “Mmmm.”

Dave (00:30:14):

I remember—I’m sure you’re familiar with Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for Christ. But then, The Case for Faith was—I don’t remember if it’s his six or eight biggest questions—and the number-one question that people wrestle with—he said—and they walk away from the faith, is: “How can a powerful and loving God allow evil? I can’t reconcile those; I’m out.” He even started the book with some famous theologian, alongside I think Billy Graham; and he [the theologian] walked away. That’s what you’re saying: that number-one question is answered in Scripture.

Mark (00:30:47):

It is.

Dave (00:30:47):

It really is.

Mark (00:30:48):

At least, it’s answered in the sense that there are things that God intends to be left in tension. We just have to realize that we’re not the master of the story. Part of our reason for wanting the reconciliation of those is we want to step into the judge’s seat and evaluate: “Yeah, that’s fair,” “Yeah, that’s good; that makes sense to me.” This is the problem with Job. Job is in a tough place; he’s losing everything.

Ann (00:31:20):

Can you imagine?!

Mark (00:31:21):

I cannot. If I’m God, and Job is lamenting to me, I would say, “Okay, look; this isn’t about you. I’m sorry, this is really hard. There’s actually a contest behind the scenes—it’s between me and Satan—and you’re stuck in the middle. You’re actually the most righteous guy I got. I’m proving something through you. Hang in there; you got this,”—that’s what I would do.

Well, God doesn’t do that; He doesn’t tell him anything about the behind the scenes. Instead, what does He do? He says, “Hey, Job, where were you when I hung the stars in the space? Have you played with Leviathan in the sea?” He basically goes through a series of instructive questions to help Job realize—this is really important—that the “Who?” question in our suffering is so much more satisfying than the “Why?” question.

Dave: What do you mean?

Mark: Meaning: we want resolution; we want answers. And God says, “The answer is: ‘I’m God; I’m sovereign.’” It just depends on how we think about ourselves in the narrative. So many of us think that we’re 30 years old; when really, we’re 3-year-old kids, talking to our parents, going: “Why do I have to go to bed?” or “Why is this happening?” or “Why won’t You let me do this?” Eventually, parents run out of rational arguments for a 3-year-old or a 7-year-old; and where do they eventually revert to? They say, “I’m your mom,” or “…dad. You just have to trust me.”

We forget that we’re not the parent in the story; we’re the child. We’re not the judge; we are somebody who is human and fallen. It’s all going to be plain; it’s all going to be evident—God’s going to make it clear; we’re going to see the grand plan—and when we see it, maybe in the new heavens and the new earth, we’ll say, “Yeah, that’s the best plan.” But right now, we get the opportunity to live in the tension of experiencing our humanity while we live underneath the umbrella of God’s sovereignty.

Dave (00:33:20):

I have a good buddy who played quarterback for the Lions, was an amazing man of God. When he was our quarterback, we baptized 27 people largely because of Jon and Jenny’s marriage; it was amazing. I’ll never forget—Jon is pretty bold in his faith; big evangelist—Jon Kitna.

After a game that he got pulled in the fourth quarter, he’s doing the press conference after the game—he says this—they say, “Hey, you feel like it was wrong for Coach to pull you in the fourth quarter?” He looks at this room of reporters, and says, “I don’t think it was wrong at all. You know what I deserved?”—Oh, no! They used the word, “deserved”; “Do you think you deserved to be pulled?”—he goes/he looked at them, and goes, “You know what I deserve? I deserve hell. I deserve hell because of my sin. That’s what I deserve.”

Ann (00:34:05):

I forgot he did that!

Dave (00:34:05):

The room was like, “What?!” He goes, “Come on; seriously, if Coach wants to make that call, he makes that call. If you want to know what we deserve, we deserve the pit of hell.” We’re all sitting; he just thought, “I’m going to be an evangelist here.” Well, it didn’t go over real well; but it made the papers.

Ann (00:34:21):

Well, let me go back to what you said about Job; because some listeners caught that: “Wait a minute. So this is just some test between God and Satan, and Job’s the one who has to suffer? What kind of God would allow that?!” It’s like a little, “Ooh!”

Mark (00:34:34):

Well, a God whose glory and goodness is so amazing that those things—including human beings, and our hardships and difficulty that end up giving Him glory—actually, it’s the best thing in the world for those people and for the creation. The problem is—again, who are we in the narrative?— the child doesn’t understand the value of what’s behind Mom and Dad’s decision.

Ann (00:34:56):

Yes.

Mark (00:34:56):

And so the ability to trust God in the most difficult moments in life comes from an understanding that God, not only is trustworthy, but that His grace is amazing; and He knows better than I do. There’s a plan here somewhere. Just because I can’t see it doesn’t mean that it’s not good or it’s not real.

So many of us—again, we think: “Prove it! Prove that this is worth it,” “Prove that this is fair,” “Prove that this makes sense,”—God doesn’t have to prove anything to me. The reality is: I’m the problem, not Him. My sin and my separation from Him is what’s caused my own shortcomings in the world and my sinful responses. When you understand the beauty of God’s grace, it allows you to see suffering and hardship in light of the bringing of what it is that God’s going to provide to help us both love Him and follow Him even better.

Ann (00:35:56):

That’s good.

Mark (00:35:56):

I mean, that’s the whole argument of Romans 8: “All things work together for good to make us more conformed to the image of Christ.” If you take that verse, and you remove the image of Christ out of the verse, it just sounds like all things work together for good in a way that makes me happy, wealthy, and wise. It shapes me into the likeness of Christ; and the question is whether or not I actually value that.

Ann (00:36:19):

I remember our friend, Jamie Winship, once said, “God doesn’t answer our “Why?” questions; but He will answer: “What do You want me to know through this situation?” I thought, “Oh, so many of us have those ‘Why?’ questions. We usually don’t get them answered. A lot of times, we don’t; but we are learning, and God’s trying to teach us.

Mark (00:36:40):

In my own story here, in 2004, I’ve got a grieving wife, crying kids, trying to be a pastor. Let me be clear: I would much rather have a 21-year-old daughter than a book on this subject; hard stuff. In fact, if I had a choice, I know what I’d choose. I would’ve never discovered lament would I have not gone after the subject.

I just think of the number of people today who know my daughter’s name—who know the story—who have found healing and grace through talking about the subject of lament. It’s so incredibly life-giving, and I’m really grateful I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I’m actually thankful that God is sovereign over all those things; because I know what I would’ve chosen. Someday, some way, God will explain it all; and He’ll make sense of it. I think it was William Cooper who said, “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace. Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.” That’s really, really important, written by a guy who understood the depths of despair, difficulty, and depression.

Ann (00:37:53):

Well, I think we need you to walk us through all the things that God taught you; because I know that this book has ministered to so many. What you’ve gone through has helped people. It’s helped all of us learn how to truly lament. So where would we start? If somebody’s like, “This is all me. This is me; I need this,”—get the book, first of all—but walk us through some of the most important things.

Mark (00:38:15):

We’ll start with the definition. I define lament as: “Aa prayer, in pain, that leads to trust.” Every one of those words and phrases are important. “It’s a prayer”—it’s Christian language—where I’m talking to God. All human beings cry—it’s how we enter the world—humans cry. To cry is human, but to lament is uniquely Christian.

It’s the language that God’s people talk to God when they’re, secondly, “in pain.” It’s a unique kind of prayer. There’s lots of prayer language in the Bible: there’s praise; there’s thanksgiving; there’s supplication. Lament is a unique prayer form.

“A prayer, in pain, that leads”: Lament is processed language; it’s not meant just to be something that we remain in. This is important—because, sometimes, when you’ve had a traumatic issue in your life, it’s not just a thing; it becomes the thing—and when it’s the thing, it can become your only thing; and it becomes your identity. Lament is how pain becomes something that’s happened to you.

But it’s not everything—because “lament leads you to trust”—trust in what? Trust in God’s goodness; reaffirmation that you know that He’s good; trust in His ability to make sense of everything in His timing. It’s the psalmist, in Psalm 13, who says, “I will sing; I will rejoice, because You have dealt bountifully with me.” If somebody only commiserates in their sorrows, and they never get to trust, they actually haven’t lamented. To lament is this process where we make our way to trust.

And most laments have four key elements of some kind. It’s music; it’s poetry—so we have to be careful that we don’t make it overly linear—but there’s turn; complain; ask; and trust—turn; complain; ask; and trust. The idea is:

I turn to God in my sorrow; I refuse to give Him the silent treatment—which is really tempting when you’re in pain—just stop praying or stop praying about a particular subject.

I complain: I lay out my problems, my challenges in clear and stark terms. I’m not a complainer; I’m laying out a complaint: “This is what’s wrong.” They give it in an official sort of legal way—it’s not grumbling—it’s saying to God, “I don’t know how this fits with what I know to be true about You.” We live in a broken world.

Dave (00:40:37):

Is there anger in that or no?

Mark (00:40:39):

There could be sinful anger in that; yes. I take the position that it’s never right to be sinfully angry with God, where anger—I think, biblically defined, is an emotion designed to address an injustice—I don’t think God is ever unjust with me. I do think we can feel frustration; we can feel confusion; we can feel tension. But to be sinfully angry with God is something that should be repented of; because I think sinful anger comes from a place of: “You did me wrong,” and “How dare You!”

Ann (00:41:10):

This is when Piper said to me—I was telling John Piper a story of my sister dying—I said, “I was angry; and I told God, ‘I am angry with You,’—and he said, “Well, that’s sin.” It kind of stopped me in my tracks, like, “Oh, wait, wait”; you just explained it.

Mark (00:41:26):

I would agree with him on that. It depends on what you mean by anger. I want to acknowledge though that there are real tensions that people feel, and there are real struggles. Sometimes, that may feel like sinful anger—and it might not be—it might be: “This is really, really hard.” When the psalmist says in Psalm 77: “I remember God. When I remember God, I moan.”

Dave (00:41:48):

“I moan”; yeah.

Mark (00:41:49):

Well, you press that too far, with a wrong attitude, that could be sinful. But at the same time, it acknowledges that there’s moments in life that we’re like, “God, seriously, this is really hard.”

Ann (00:41:59):

—“and I don’t understand.” But at the end of my prayer, I was like, “But I’ll trust You; because I know that You are good, God, even though I don’t feel it right now.”

Mark (00:42:08):

That’s exactly where lament leads—turn; complaint—

Ask—take the promises of Scripture—incorporating them into your life, asking for God’s help.

And then, the conclusion is: “Trust”: “God, I can trust You with these gaps; I can live in this tension of my sorrow. And I know that, somehow, some way; there’s a good God behind all of this. Today, I am confused and a little disoriented, but I know who You are.” It’s a re-grounding, if you will, of who you are and your experience, in the goodness and grace of God.

Ann (00:42:42):

Do you think people—and I know the answer to this—but I feel like, when people are so burdened and in pain emotionally, often, we go hide in something rather than truly lamenting and going to the Father. What areas do you think we hide in? What’s an area that you would, apart from Christ?

Mark (00:43:04):

I think what we do is we give God the silent treatment. We just stop praying entirely or we embrace emotional, or physical, or real escapisms kind of thing, where one of the psalmists says—I think it’s Psalm 55—“Oh, that I had wings like a dove; I could fly away and be at rest.” This idea of just kind of running away from my problems. We have all sorts of ways that we can try and do that and cope. Or we can get really, really busy. I find this particularly to be true with men: rather than grieving the loss, they just click into: “No, I’m fine”; and they just try to fix, fix, fix, fix, fix, fix, fix.

Ann (00:43:39):

Is that yours?

Mark (00:43:40):

Finally, their grief catches up with them.

Dave (00:43:41):

Don’t even talk about me. I had a therapist once—I was going through a thing with our church and succession—and sat down with him for five hours. At the end of sort of drawing my whole life on a board—he didn’t know me; but an amazing Christian counselor, whose niche is Christian leaders—he goes, “I don’t really do therapy; I just meet with Christian leaders. Here’s your homework: ‘What are you running from?’ You got to answer this question: ‘What are you running from?’” I look at him; I go, “What are you talking about?” He goes, “You don’t see this. You are this, this, this, this. You’re running from something.”

I come home, and tell Ann. She’s like, “What did he say? What did he say?” “He said I got to answer this question: ‘What am I running from?” She’s like, “Duh! I’ve been telling you this forever.”

Ann (00:44:23):

I didn’t say that; I didn’t say, “Duh.”

Dave (00:44:24):

Well, you gave me a look like that, like,—

Mark: —“Bless your heart.”

Dave:“I’ve been trying to tell you this forever.”

Ann: He felt the “Duh!”

Dave: That was a large part of my life—it was sort of running, even from lamenting about pain, even from family of origin—I’m good at things, so I run to things and accomplish. I’m not going to lament; I’m not going to deal with it; I’ll bury it. Horrible way to live life.

Mark (00:44:53):

Yeah, and very common. Part of the reason is grief is scary; it reminds us that we’re broken. We would rather ignore that reality, which is one of the reasons why—it’s just so interesting to me how we have changed funerals—it’s almost as though we’re afraid to grieve at funerals. We turn them into celebrations of life.

Ann (00:45:16):

Well, we won’t even wear black, a lot of times, anymore.

Mark (00:45:19):

Or the testimonies hardly acknowledge the loss. And even frankly, somebody who’s passing away gives the family an edict: “Whatever you do, don’t cry at my funeral.” I’m just like, “What are we doing?”

Ann (00:45:30):

I haven’t thought through that because seeing that more and more lately and people are like, “We’re celebrating; they’re in new life.” But you’re right; it doesn’t give you a chance to just mourn and grieve.

Mark (00:45:41):

So that, when Thanksgiving comes, and there’s an empty seat at the table, you’re like, “I feel this.” Suddenly, now, we don’t have a category that: “Yeah, that’s actually normal. That’s okay; it’s okay to acknowledge the loss. It’s okay to grieve it; it’s okay to be sad.” We’re going to be fine; but death is frightening, and sorrow is an early warning that death is still real. Because it’s in our world, and because it challenges our sense of autonomy and transcendence, human beings have this tendency to want to either ignore it, or even shush it, kind of keep it under wraps.

After I wrote this book, and after I’ve done a lot of work on lament, I had a friend whose son eventually died of cancer way, way, way too early. We’re in their home with a small group. The dad is just slumped over an ottoman. He’s just lamenting, and he’s crying out in prayer to God. I have a category for lament; I’ve written on lament; I can define lament; I can teach a seminar in lament—and everything within me wanted him to stop—I was uncomfortable; it was frightening! It was just a stunning moment, to be like, “Wow, this is not intellectual. This is a visceral reaction to the presence of loss that’s in my orbit.” I think that’s true for all humans; I think that’s true for Christians. I think it’s one of the reasons that, at times, we can be really unhelpful to people when they’re grieving.

Dave (00:47:14):

And is lament, often, long? Can it be a lament over days, weeks, months?

Mark: —or years.

Dave: You can look at this—turn; complain; ask; trust—you can do that in 15 minutes—and sometimes, we do—but sometimes: “This is going a while.”

Mark (00:47:31):

I would compare it maybe to a song—your favorite song—sometimes, you sing it a lot; sometimes, you sing on particular occasions; and sometimes, you sing it for your entire life—it’s just always with you—because it captures the essence of a moment. I think it’s very individual. I think there are some people where, because of the need of the moment, they are lamenting a particular subject—and that’s really enough: once, twice—and they feel like, “I’ve got some level of spiritual resolution.”

Other people, because of the circumstances, their progress looks like: turn one day; complain the next; ask the third; trust. And for some people that looks like: “Every three days, I’m going to lament,” and “I’m going to probably have to do that for years,”—because either the problem isn’t contained—death of a loved one’s hard; but at least, there’s a funeral; there’s a grave; you’ve got to recover and find your new normal—but when it’s a divorce, when it’s a wayward child, when it’s other things that are family-related—the sorrow is continual. You need to learn how to lament regularly so that you can even be present for your kids; or emotionally whole, so you can still do life with them, despite your deep levels of disappointment and sorrow.

Dave (00:48:59):

I just thought of a bonus question.

Ann (00:49:01):

Oh, good.

Dave (00:49:02):

Yeah, we’re going to save for our financial partners.

Ann (00:49:04):

Give us a tease: “What is it?”

Dave (00:49:05):

The tease will be, based on what you just said. I’ll tell them what we’re going to ask: you can become a financial partner—you can start giving to us monthly, and you can stay on for this question we’ll save for later—but the question’s going to be: “When your spouse is lamenting, and you feel like it’s too long, how do you respond?”

Mark: Oh man, I can’t wait.

Dave: Save that for later.

Mark (00:49:28):

I can’t wait to talk about that.

Dave (00:49:29):

I think that happens; and you’re like,—

Mark: Totally.

Ann (00:49:32):

Ann: It happened with us.

Dave (00:49:34):

“I’m not sure what to do.”

Mark: Totally.

Dave: Yeah, we’ll save it.

Ann (00:49:35):

Well, I wanted you to get into that a little bit—because you’re right—when a person dies, you know that, in time, it will become better. But when you’re having kids who are maybe prodigals; or your marriage just seems to be getting worse, how do we lament and live our life? That’s not an easy thing. What’s that look like?

Mark (00:49:59):

It’s really challenging; I’m not going to be all chipper that it’s tough. The difference is, though, that you learn that the language of lament is the means by which God gives you grace to live one more day.

Ann (00:50:17):

Oh, that’s good.

Mark (00:50:17):

Part of it is lament helps us to know how to live when our time horizon has to be shorter. One of my favorite passages is in Matthew when Jesus said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow has enough trouble of its own.” That sounds like a really depressing verse: “Don’t worry about tomorrow; it’s going to be really bad.” But what He means is that every day has a providential limit of trouble in a proportionate reference to how much grace that you have. I have grace for my troubles today; I don’t have grace for my troubles for tomorrow. If I want to try and borrow trouble, well then, I can borrow trouble with no grace. Good luck with that.

The key to living through longer seasons of trial, and suffering, and hardship is shortening our time horizon—realize: “What do I have to do today?” I say, “I got to follow Jesus today,”—I only have grace for what’s in front of me. For the sorrows that I feel, I need to lament them—trust God; go to bed; wake up, and believe that the Bible is true—that His mercies are new every morning.

By the way, Jeremiah said that; he pronounced that over a situation that everything about the scenario he was seeing would’ve screamed: “God has abandoned His people!” I talk about this in the book: I was at a Christian conference center and saw this painting on the wall. It was a Thomas Kincaid kind-of-looking-thing with a little cottage—looked like an English cottage—this beautiful river and flowers, literally, like an Airbnb in Colorado.

Ann (00:51:49):

Lights in the window.

Mark (00:51:50):

Oh, yeah! All the soft colors. Underneath it, it says: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies are new every morning.” I just looked at that; and I was like, “So somebody thought that verse goes with that picture; that verse does not go with that picture. If you want—

Ann (00:52:06):

What would your picture look like?

Mark (00:52:07):

“It would look like an F4 tornado just wiped out a city.”

Ann: It’s true!

Mark: That’s what that verse is about. It’s about, even though it looks like God has ditched us—He’s abandoned us; the temple is torn down; all of the people of Israel have been taken captive to Babylon—in that moment, Jeremiah has the courage/the faith to say, “The steadfast of the Lord never ceases; His mercies are new every”—he’s planting a flag—”His mercies are new every morning.”

Dave (00:52:37):

And it wasn’t denial; because sometimes, when people say those kinds of things, they’re just living in denial. They’re not willing to bring the two together.

Mark (00:52:45):

Yeah; I think Christians live either in denial or despair. Denial is they think that real Christians never talk about their sorrows. They come to church; and people ask them, “How are you doing?” And they’re like, “Fine; just trusting in the Lord”; and behind the scenes, they’re really struggling. They think that the best kind of Christians actually only talk about all of the good. They come to church, and all the songs we’re singing are about triumph and victory; they’re in the pews or seats, going, “That’s not me. Do I belong here?” So then, they can tip into despair, which is: “If I have these questions, I might not be a Christian.”

(00:53:25)

I think a lot of Christians tend towards those two ditches.

Now, somebody would say, “Wait a minute, Mark. Doesn’t the Bible say ‘rejoice always’?” Yes, it does; it’s true. You should rejoice. My question is: “How do you get there?”—and that’s what lament does. Lament is the language that moves us from being in a really hard place, with really tough questions, to get us to the point that we could say, “I will sing; I will rejoice, because God has dealt bountifully with me,”—Psalm 13. But before that, he [the psalmist] said, “How long will the Lord/will You forget me forever?” That’s what lament does: it’s a bridge between the poles of: “I believe God is good, but my life is really hard.”

Dave (00:54:04):

Would it be interesting—I’ve never had this thought—if, as we walk in church, there was a little scale or something above everybody’s head that measured how much pain they’re in right now, and that could be revealed—we could see it—I think we’d be shocked at the amount of pain in the room. We used to have a sign in our green room that said: “Never underestimate the pain in the room.” When we were walking onto the stage, we’re like, “You got to remember: ‘I may be great today. There’s a lot of people in this congregation—maybe, the majority—who are not great today. Don’t go up there and just say, “Hey!”’” That’s part of it—you got to be: “Hey, God is good,”—but you also have to discern there’s a lot of pain that you don’t see, but it’s real and it’s happening. We need that; we need that little counter.

Ann (00:54:51):

Mark, let me ask you—because when my sister died, I’d go to worship; I couldn’t even sing; I just sobbed the entire time—I wanted to sing, and it felt good to be there; but I couldn’t even get the words out. It’s almost like worship opens your soul, and you just feel it. Was I grieving or was I lamenting? And what’s the difference?

Mark (00:55:13):

Well, what do you think?

Dave: I like it.

Ann (00:55:16):

I think it was both.

Mark (00:55:17):

Tell me why.

Ann (00:55:18):

I think I was grieving out of sadness and loss. The lamenting part: I think I was doing that along the way of telling God: “This is where I am.” Lamenting is expressing, out loud, “I’m suffering; this is hard.”

Dave (00:55:41):

It felt unjust.

Ann (00:55:42):

Yeah, but what’s grief?

Mark (00:55:46):

Well, grief is just the normal human—

Ann: —emotional sadness.

Mark (00:55:49):

—emotion in response to pain. Grief certainly is part of lament.

What happens is that lament takes grief—and think of it like giving it tracks—which is why I asked you the question: “What do you think it was?” Because sometimes, you just don’t know. What lament does is it takes grief, and it moves it along. If, in that worship service, you are sad and filled with emotion, that is hard and challenging. You’re hearing singing; and you’re like, “This is true.”

Ann (00:56:25):

Yeah, that’s what I felt: “This is true.”

Mark (00:56:27):

“This is true.” What just happened there? The connection between your grief and believing what’s true—that is lament right there—that process is what lament is designed to do: “I’m really sad. I remember God; I moan; and yet, Your footprints were unseen.” That’s what—so lament holds those two things; they don’t conflict with one another—it’s that those two things just exist in tension.

Ann (00:56:57):

But I like that it gives tracks so they can move along.

Mark (00:57:03):

It would be helpful—and might have been even helpful for you in that moment—imagine if you knew, in that moment: “My grief is normal. My experience here is part of what it means to be a human and what it means to be a Christian. As I sing, God is moving me along. I’m actually making progress right now.” Because so many people, when they’re in a worship service like that, their emotions—and they can’t sing—they feel like a failure: “If I was a real Christian, I could just sing,” or “…I could smile more,” or—because they have this idea that’s what happens with real Christians as they experience pain—they live in a way that is disconnected from their pain.

To be a Christian means that you’re in pain; and yet, you trust.

Ann (00:57:44):

Honestly, it was so hard for me to understand the purpose. It seemed ridiculous [her sister’s death]: “This is the dumbest thing, Lord; I don’t understand.” It was good for me to be reminded: I needed the Word, and I needed worship.

I felt like I couldn’t pray sometimes. Is that normal? I’ve heard a lot of people say, “I can’t even pray.” That made me feel guilty. But there is a part of me—I can’t even—that’s why church was important, just to hear it and to be reminded of: “This is who He is.”

Mark (00:58:16):

To answer your first question about hardly even praying—Psalm 77—“In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord; but my soul refuses to be comforted.” His prayers aren’t working.

Let me ask you, if I can: “It felt like it was unfair,” or “…felt like it was stupid,” I think is the word you used, which I get. Did you come to a point of accepting or resolving that tension?

Ann (00:58:50):

No.

Mark (00:58:51):

“It just is what it is.”

Ann (00:58:53):

When you look at it, she’s 44 with 4 little boy; 4 boys. To me, that seemed like: “What would the point be?” My resolution was: “God is good, and I can trust Him; and I don’t need to know the answer,”—that was it—”I’m going to trust Him because I know He has an answer; I know He knows all things.”

I think that, maybe, this happened to you. I had to be in the Word constantly to be reminded of the truth of how good He was. If I wasn’t in the Word, I think I could have drifted for sure.

Mark (00:59:28):

Yeah, your emotions certainly would take you that way. And the evidence in front of you might even take you that way; because objectively, “How could that be good?” And yet, if you were to stand—imagine in front of me is the cross; and behind me, is Resurrection Sunday, empty tomb—if I have my back to the resurrection; and all I see is the cross, my conclusion is: “This is unfair,” “This is unjust,” “This is a waste.”

Ann (00:59:58):

“It’s stupid.”

Mark (01:00:00):

“It’s stupid,”—100 percent. And so part of it is just realizing—in time, if we turn and we understand the rest of the story—we’ll see, “Oh, that’s what’s going on.” That’s to live in that gap or that tension though—“What do we do in that season?”—that’s the language of lament.

Ann (01:00:20):

I think the older we get, the more you see: “Should we mourn the death of someone in Christ? We know it’s paradise, what they’re experiencing eternally with the Father. That is good news. It’s just for us here, who are suffering in the midst of it; that’s the hard part, not for them.” I usually hear people—my sister didn’t complain as she was dying—she was my best friend. She didn’t want to leave her kids, but she knew what was to come. I struggled more than she did.

Mark (01:00:54):

And there’s just something objectively true at every funeral—which is: “Death is outrageous,”—the separation of family; the loss of relationship. It’s a regular reminder: “Something is seriously wrong with the world.” Every death is a reminder of that. I think part of it is that we live in our everyday human experience, and we become a little inoculated to the problem and the presence of sin in the world. Sometimes, it takes a death to remind us. Solomon put it this way: “It’s better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting.”

Why did he say that?—”I said that because you learn more at funerals than you do at parties; you listen to what’s said.” I think it’s David Brooks who talks about eulogy virtues versus resume virtues. Eulogy virtues are the things that are said about you at your funeral; resume virtues are the things that you build your career upon. He says, basically: “Be sure that you’re living by eulogy virtues, not just resume virtues,”—

Ann (01:01:55):

That’s good.

Mark (01:01:55):

—which I think is really an insightful caution about: “How we can live our lives in an incorrect sort of focused way.”

Dave (01:02:04):

I love this quote in your book from Nicholas—how do you say it?—Wolterstorff?

Mark (01:02:09):

Wolterstorff, yeah.

Dave (01:02:10):

“I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that, dry-eyed, I could not see.”

Mark (01:02:17):

Man, oh, man. He uses eyes as a metaphor. I use ears: “Once you’ve heard lament, it’s amazing how you hear it in so many other spaces.” Or once you see it or hear it in one space, you begin to realize: “Oh, it’s there,” and “It’s there,” and “It’s there,” and “It’s there.” You realize that there’s a reason that Jesus was called a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: here’s the God-man in the world, and He is seeing the effects of the departure from the glory of God. He stands at Lazarus’s grave. He knows He is going to raise him from the dead, but He’s weeping. Why is He weeping? Because it didn’t have to be this way. The sorrow of Lazarus’s family—and Jesus is acquainted with our grief—and yet, He’s about ready to call him out of the grave. There’s something fundamentally wrong with the world. Christians know the answer: it’s sin. The broken world we live in cries out for redemption.

Ann: That’s so good!

Dave (01:03:19):

How would you coach or counsel a listener, or somebody watching, who’s been following us this whole time, and saying, “I don’t think I’ve ever lamented. I’m definitely in grief; I’m definitely sad. I’m not sure I’ve ever lamented. How do I start?”

Mark (01:03:37):

I’d start by looking at Psalm 13; read it out loud—it’s short; it’s clear—the transition is there.

And then, after you see it and read it, imagine you translate that in your own version. Imagine the Wilson translation or the Vroegopean translation: “What does that sound like?” Like what you were doing with your guitar: you were taking Psalm 77, with music and the whole thing, you were interpreting it in your own life and experience.

The third step would be to take the framework of—turn; complaint; ask; and trust—and just try it. Talk to God; turn to Him in your grief. Lay out what’s wrong. Ask for Him to help, and trust Him. And then, start doing that on a more regular basis to see how it is that the Lord uses this prayer language to give you grace. I think folks will be surprised that just baby steps in this way results in an overflow of mercy and grace that God sends our way.

Ann (01:04:37):

Can you give us an example of that? Do it when your daughter died—when you suffered and you were grieving—give us an example of what that could look like and what you did.

Mark (01:04:53):

In that moment, I am calling out to God, and acknowledging: “God, I’m really hurting, and I’m really scared. I am worried that my wife is never going to stop crying. How are we going to make it? How am I going to be a pastor?” and “Why?—a nine-pound little baby doesn’t deserve this, and there’s no answer. I’m going to be left for the rest of my life with an unexplained stillbirth, which means no ability to prevent it in the future. It’s not a problem I can solve; I don’t what the problem was. But I know You’re good. I know I can trust You. You’ve proven yourself over, and over, and over in my life that You’re trustworthy. I’m going to live in this tension of a life that’s harder than what I wanted, and a situation that feels more overwhelming than what I think I can bear. I’m just going to believe that, somehow, some way, You’re going to help me. Therefore, I’m going to sing my way through the storm. I’m going to trust that You’re going to help me; You’re not going to leave me. I’m still hurting, so come.” That would be how I would interpret

Psalm 13.

Ann (01:06:13):

And would you have to do that again and again?

Mark (01:06:15):

Again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Even as you asked me to do this—it’s been 22 years since my daughter’s passing—and it doesn’t take a lot for the emotion to pop right up.

Ann (01:06:29):

It doesn’t take me a lot to go with you in it.

Mark (01:06:31):

Yeah. Here’s another thing—I’m not a grief counselor—I don’t have training in that. Let me just tell you, experientially, what I’ve observed, as a pastor, helping a lot of people in grief. Sometimes, people think that grief recovery looks like: “I get over it, and I never grieve again.” They think/they wish that was the case: “Oh, it just hasn’t been my experience, but the experience of others.”

Instead, what it looks like is the length of time between really strong, and almost frightening, emotions; it gets further and further apart. Two years [pass] —Sylvia’s birthday comes up; or we’re hanging up Christmas ornaments, [one’s] got her name on it—those emotions come rushing back, like out of nowhere. Or I was doing a talk on lament last weekend; and somebody asked me a question—I forget what it was about—I started to tell a little part of the story. I had to stop because I actually got very emotional. I just paused, and I was like, “Look, I don’t even know where this is coming from. It’s not even within my control; but apparently, I’m still a person who’s grieving at some level.”

John Piper described it this way: “It’s like an amputation. You heal, but you’re never the same.” I think that’s a good way to think about it: “I’m okay, but this will always be true. I’m able to move on and still glorify the Lord. And not everything in my life is defined by these sorrows and losses, but it doesn’t take a lot to open that subject back up.” There’s always a good amount of appropriate sorrow; it doesn’t mean I haven’t healed—I think I have healed—but it means that that moment counted. I’m a normal human being who is still processing that.

Ann (01:08:19):

I’m thinking about your kids: “How old are your kids now?”

Mark (01:08:24):

Our twins are 28; another son who’s 25; and our daughter, Savannah’s, 19.

Ann (01:08:30):

How have you taught this to them? I think one of the things I love about you, Mark, is you’re not afraid to show emotion, pain, and sorrow. What’s that look like for us, as parents? How can we help our kids with this?

Mark (01:08:44):

That’s a really good question. I don’t know the full answer to that; because I think that sort of depends on the person, their personality, the event that’s happened, the age of their kids, even kind of the wiring of their kids. The risk would be is I get a simplistic and prescriptive answer.

But let me try, at one level, just to set the framework. I think that it’s important for parents to appropriately allow their kids into their grief. I say, “appropriately”; because there are boundaries. There are levels of transparency that parents shouldn’t go to because it would be damaging to kids.

(01:09:32)

But there’s another extreme, which is that kids don’t know that fighting through sorrow and battling it is actually the success, not never having it. I think welcoming them in—sharing the struggles, as appropriate—teaching them how to grieve. Hopefully, the kids are old enough that they’ve got a theology already built into their system, because of what they’ve heard and seen, depending, again, on the age. It’s hard to teach a child a theology of suffering in suffering. That theology needs to be built in before; so then, it can click in—and again, age appropriate—et cetera, et cetera.

One of the things I’m thankful for in the last five years has been some resources for kids about lament—even a great book/a kids’ book—called The Moon Is Always Round.

Ann (01:10:27):

We just interviewed—

Mark (01:10:29):

—Jon Gibson; yeah.

Ann (01:10:30):

We had Jonathan call in his wife; she was here, talking about the book.

Mark (01:10:35):

That’s right.

Ann (01:10:35):

But then, we had Jonathan read the book.

Mark (01:10:38):

I can’t imagine.

Ann (01:10:38):

It’s so good!

Mark (01:10:40):

That idea—that model—when I saw the book, I was like, “Oh, praise God. Thank You, Jesus, that somebody’s doing this kind of work.” And there’s a new book out—

Ann (01:10:47):

Because they had lost their stillborn child.

Mark (01:10:49):

Yes; exactly.

I think one of the staff folks at TGC [The Gospel Coalition]—I think it’s maybe Betsy Childs Howard—has a children’s book on lament, specifically. Just super thankful for people entering into this space; because kids need to know that this situation in life that we’re in is real, and it’s consequential. And then, I think also finding ways to exercise the lament muscle in minor moments of disappointment instead of just major moments.

Ann (01:11:18):

Yeah, that’s good.

Mark (01:11:18):

So that, when you feel mistreated at school, or when you’re disappointed about something that you’ve lost, or some childhood grief, I think it’s important to teach kids: “How do we respond to that? How do we use this biblical language?” If you’re only applying lament in the most dark and difficult scenarios of life, it feels really intense. It’s hard to apply something if you’re trying to do it for the first time. So those are a few ways.

Ann (01:11:50):

I think, too, to demonstrate, even in prayer, before our kids. When our kids were little, I can remember driving them to school. They were elementary—young elementary—but allowing them to see my disappointment or sadness, like, “Lord, I feel sad today,”—but to end the prayer—“But I trust You because I know You’re good.” For little ears to hear those things, I think that’s teaching our kids we can be real and honest with God: “Mom says that she loves Him, and she trusts Him, and that He’s good.” Those things lock into our kids, knowing: “I can trust God too. I may not know Him like Mom does, but Mom and Dad think that He’s good and He’s trustworthy. I can also be really honest with Him.” I can say, in Michigan, like, “Lord, how many days is it going to be cloudy? What’s happening?” To see: “This is a conversation with a God we love,—

Mark (01:12:44):

Absolutely.

Ann (01:12:45):

—who’s with us.”

Mark (01:12:46):

We need our kids to have a fully-orbed understanding of the Christian life. As long as the laments are balanced with opportunities for thanksgiving and praise, I think that’s great.

Ann (01:13:00):

That’s good.

Mark (01:13:01):

The trouble is that so many of us, we kind of have an inkling or we’re so chipper, we don’t acknowledge that things are hard or we’re so naturally given to despair that the only time we’re praying out loud is when the sky is falling, so to speak. You know what I mean? And so that’s where, and kids learn: “Oh, real Christians are just really sad all the time.”

Ann (01:13:21):

Or “There’s never sadness. Mom’s always up, and everything’s great.”

Mark (01:13:26):

Yeah. So June, July, and August does happen in Michigan; right?

Ann (01:13:29):

I’ll say that: “Lord, look at this tree that You created in the fall.” We’re celebrating all of it.

Mark (01:13:35):

I just think it needs to be balanced and appropriately calibrated to understand the Christian life is highs and lows.

Ann (01:13:47):

It’s just like marriage.

Mark (01:13:48):

Yep. What Eugene Peterson said: “It’s a long obedience in the same direction. We’re just going to take one step in highs, and lows, and difficulties. We’re just going to keep marching on, trusting the Lord.”

Dave (01:13:58):

Yeah. It’s interesting. I was not excited about this interview. I like you, Mark; but I’m like, “We’re going to talk about lament for several sessions?”

Ann (01:14:10):

You don’t like to stay in the box.

Mark (01:14:11):

I have a hard time believing that, because you got up and wrote a song about it.

Dave (01:14:13):

I didn’t write it; David did. But let me ask you this: “Is there anything we didn’t hit that you’re like, ‘Oh, gee, we missed this.’”

Mark (01:14:24):

You didn’t miss anything. There’s just one—we’ve talked a lot about Psalms—I just want to mention Lamentations. Lamentations is the longest lament in the whole Bible.

Ann (01:14:34):

And we don’t always like to read Lamentations.

Mark (01:14:36):

We do not.

Dave (01:14:37):

“I’m not teaching that on a sermon.” And you did a whole series on it; you walked your congregation through it.

Mark (01:14:42):

I did. Our staff were a little bit like, “We’re going to spend how many weeks on this?” But it actually proved to be one of the most consequential sermons in the life of our congregation.

Ann (01:14:52):

Really?

Mark (01:14:52):

Because it demonstrated two things: one, there is a boatload of people in the church who Lamentations was like, “That’s my song.” And [secondly], it also demonstrated we can talk about grief or lament for six weeks and be okay. We actually have more resilience in this space; we’re more afraid of it than what we even want to acknowledge.

Lamentations speaks about the destruction of Jerusalem, and it’s like a mountain. Chapters 1 and 2 are just rehearsing what’s wrong. Chapter 3 is kind of the summit. The pinnacle of the summit is: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end.” I love how the New Living translation renders it; it says, “I will never forget this awful time; and yet, I will dare to hope.” The idea is: when hoping is often a dare; it’s a big risk to hope in God when you have a really hard time.”

What I love about Lamentations is, after that sort of signature moment—where he just plants a flag: “God is faithful, and God is just,”—there’s two more chapters. There’s Chapter 4, where things are not still great; Chapter 5, things are still not great. And the whole lament ends with this: “Restore us, O Lord, to Yourself that we may be restored. Renew us as the days of old unless You have utterly rejected us and You remain exceedingly angry with us.” That’s how it ends.

(01:16:28)

Now, why do I love that? There’s a whole host of theological things—we can talk about that—”Why do I love that?” It’s because most of our lives look more like that than they do like a Hallmark movie.

Ann (01:16:38):

Yes!

Mark (01:16:39):

It’s like you get up, off your knees, praying—you get out of your couch, after you’ve poured out your heart to the Lord—and you’re like: “Well, I don’t know if my kids are coming back,” “I don’t know how my sister’s kids are going to fare.” The reason that’s important is because some people can think that lament ties a bow on it all. It’s a package; and lament and lamentation shows us: “No, it actually opens up a new vista, with a lot of risk, but a lot of confidence. But knowing that, as CS Lewis talked about in The Chronicles of Narnia, we go further up and further in; further up, further in; further up, further in. The more you understand and expand on this, the better questions you have; the more unresolved life actually is. And yet, you still have a great confidence that, someday, some way, God’s going to make it all clear. Until then, you rest in the fact that: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.’”

Dave (01:17:40):

Wow. Well, I’m thinking everything you’ve said—and even Lamentations there—”If my mom could think about that,”—if she would’ve been able to understand lament—my dad leaves; my brother dies; I’m seven, he’s five—like six, seven weeks, later,—

Ann (01:18:03):

—after the divorce.

Dave (01:18:04):

And my sister, who was in high school, told us, just last year; she goes, “Yeah, you don’t know this; you were a little boy. But I came home from high school, and the pastor’s walking out of our house. He says to me, “Your brother just died.” Mom never talked about it ever again; it was never brought up. It was like, “That’s what you do. You just—‘Okay, bad thing happened; we move on.’” To listen to this, I’m like, “Wow.”

And so what was her escape?—alcohol; that’s where she ran. And it would probably have not had to go that way if she had been able to understand that. And me, as a little boy, like, “This is hard.” You can cry—and crying; that’s human—I love that quote: “To lament is Christian.” We were never taught that. This is such a gift to so many people to understand that.

Mark (01:18:51):

And isn’t God kind that, even though you didn’t know that language, even though your mom didn’t, I bet if we were to trace back how informative those moments in your life have been to actually where you are today. So even when we don’t know how to lament, God still is kind; He’s still sovereign. This is our language, though, to help us in the in-between times.

Ann (01:19:13):

And the bow happens when we are with Jesus and eternity; that’s the bow.

Mark (01:19:18):

Exactly; that’s when the tears get wiped away, and our faith becomes sight. Until then, we just got to keep lamenting until He comes.

Dave: Thank you.

Mark: You’re welcome.

Dave: It’s been great.

Mark: It’s been great to talk with you guys today.

Ann (01:19:29):

Hey, thanks for watching. If you’d like this episode,—

Dave (01:19:32):

You better like it.

Ann (01:19:33):

—just hit that “Like” button.

Dave (01:19:34):

And we’d like you to subscribe. All you got to do is go down and hit the “Subscribe”—

can’t say the word, “subscribe”—hit the “Subscribe” button. I don’t think I can say this

word!

Ann: I can subscribe.

Dave: Look at that! You say it so easily. “Subscribe”; there he goes!

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