Lament Series: Bringing Our Teetering Stack of Requests to God

The other night my 2 year old brought me a stack of 8 books for bed time reading. I told her we were only going to read one. Undeterred, she dumped the entire pile in my lap, crawled onto the sofa next to me, and looked up at me expectantly.

The third component of lament is our invitation to tell God exactly what we want.

What does our heart long for in our grief and suffering? Is there something we want God to fix? Someone we want him to heal? A problem we want him to resolve? Or an aspect of himself we want him to reveal?

The request portion of lament is like our daughter’s stack of books. She brought me everything she wanted. She knew I wasn’t going to read all of them. She had to trust that I love her and that I know what is best for her regarding her bed time. But that didn’t stop her from bringing the whole stack anyway.

In comparison, if I tell our five year old that we are only reading one book – she will agonize over the bookshelf and make herself sick trying to make the perfect choice.

Too often, I try to perfectly formulate my prayer requests to God. I think that if I can just pray “the right way” then God will answer me!

In lament, God isn’t expecting us to bring him a perfect prayer request. It doesn’t need to be neat and tidy. We don’t have to be afraid of asking him too much. He’s not like me. I might raise an eye brow and subtly (or not subtly) make sure my five year old knows she’s pushing the limit. God doesn’t ever belittle or scorn a broken and contrite heart. He welcomes, and delights in our humble stack of prayer requests that feel overwhelmingly impossible to our weary hearts.

Lament requests have a unique component to them: they are not based on our own whims, but instead on what we know is true of God.

We know God forgives (Ephesians 1:7) – so we get to request abundant forgiveness.

We know God cares for parents (Isaiah 40:11) – so we get to ask for his provision, protection, wisdom, guidance, and endurance.

We know God is near (1 Corinthians 6:19) – so we get to ask for tangible reminders of his presence.

We know God heals and redeems (Luke 7:21) – so we get to ask him for healing, restoration and redemption.

And we don’t have to just pick one of those! We get to bring him our who teetering stack and dump it in his lap.

Is there a request you’ve been hesitant to make? Something that feels too big or too small? Maybe your request is directly connected to the complaints and questions you have in your heart?

Whatever you need from the Lord this week, you can boldly make your request and have confidence that:

“God will only give you what you would have asked for if you knew everything he knows” – Tim Keller

Reflection Questions:

1. Make time this week to be completely honest with God and tell him all your requests.
2. Which requests feel too big to ask? Which ones feel too small?
3. Do you trust that God will answer you in the most loving way?
4. If it feels too painful to hope and bring your requests to the Lord yourself, ask a friend to intercede and pray a hope-filled prayer on your behalf. You can use this group to do that for you too!