Psalm 77 Worship

Worship: Cry Out Together – Psalm 77, Part 5
Posted byjoelkimeApril 8, 2022Posted

inUncategorizedTags:asaph, bible, christians, church, death, god, healing, hope, Jesus, lament, l
oss, pain, psalm 77, psalms, worship
This week I welcome guest blogger, Clint Watkins, as he shares with us how
his personal experience of loss and pain led him to learn how to seize hope
through lament. If you want to learn more about Clint, please visit
his website.
As we conclude our study of Psalm 77, did you notice that we skipped a part
of this Psalm? In our previous posts, we learned how Asaph teaches us that
when we are struggling with loss and pain, we can seize hope through
lament by weeping, wrestling, wondering and waiting. But there one more
step we skipped, a step that’s crucial to our understanding of lament. We
skipped the inscription before verse 1:
“For the director of music. For Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A psalm.”
This is not a journal entry, not a private prayer—this is a song. And this song
was intended for use in corporate worship. Think about that. Not just the
more hopeful part at the end. This entire Psalm, including the pain and
questioning, was on the greatest hits of Israel’s worship.
The fact that this is a song is not unique to Psalm 77. This is the nature of the
Psalms as a whole. They were not primarily written for devotional use.
Though they can help our individual relationships with the Lord, their
original function was for corporate worship. That’s why many refer to the
Psalms as the “hymnbook” of God’s people. And using the Psalms in this way
extends to the church. Paul tells Christians to sing the Psalms when they
gather. In other words, the Psalms should be instrumental in shaping the
way we pray and sing, together.
Now, at one level, this probably isn’t revolutionary to hear. We use Psalms
all the time in our songs and worship. “Bless the Lord O My Soul” is a good
example. Or there’s a song, “The Earth is Yours,” that takes one of its lines
from verse 16. But what I’ve found is that we’re very selective
about which parts of Psalms we use in worship. Can you guess what our
tendency is? We only use the happy parts! Often the pain, wrestling,
questions, struggle—they get left behind.
In other words, we’ll happily take portions from the second half of Psalm 77,
but the questioning, the crying, the part about God not bringing comfort—
we won’t include that in our lyrics.
Here’s why this is concerning. Lament is the largest category of Psalms.

Lament accounts for well over a third of them. 68 out of 150 psalms are
prayers out of pain. That means 1 out of every 3 songs in God’s hymnbook
was a prayer in pain. 1 out of 3 songs are filled with lyrics of despair and
doubt, wrestling and struggle.
So that shows us that lament is not something we do in order to worship.

Lament is worship. God gave us these words as a template for how to sing
to him together. Worship is meant to involve the whole breadth and depth
of human emotion and experience—sorrow and celebration, heartache and
happiness, grief and gratitude, confidence and confusion. God invites us to
bring him both our praises and our pain when we gather. Both honor the
Lord.
And lament’s prevalence in Biblical worship shows us that lament should be

a regular rhythm in the body of Christ. If 1 out of 3 songs is a lament, if
lament is the largest category in the Psalter, we should be concerned that
it’s virtually disappeared from use. We need to recover this gift, to sing
about sorrow together, in order to worship with the honesty that God
permits, in order to wrestle for the hope that God provides.
There are many reasons why lamenting regularly together can be powerful,
but let me just end by giving you two.
Lament unifies the rejoicing and weeping. On any given Sunday, people are
walking into the sanctuary with burdens and struggles. You can use Psalm 77
as an example.
 There are people here who are verses 1-9 people. Struggling, in pain,
wrestling with God, working through difficult questions
 There are people here who are verses 10-20 people. You’re reflecting on
God’s character and goodness, lingering and wondering and waiting.
 And, honestly, I think we’re all typically a mixture of the two.
But if our tone and posture and lyrics only speak for verses 10-20 people, it
excludes the people who are weighed down. In fact, this was my experience,
and I have heard this time and time again from others—they feel like there’s
no song for their sorrow. An excess of triumphant choruses can leave
sufferers feeling defeated. Paul tells the church to rejoice with those who
rejoice and to weep with those who weep. He also says that, in the body, if
one member is honored, everyone celebrates. And if one member suffers,
everyone hurts. Praise allows us to rejoice with each other. Lament allows
us to weep with each other.
My challenge to you is to incorporate lament in the way you worship

together. This ought to be a regular experience—and the more you do it, the
more normal it will become. Worship leaders can include songs that capture
the heart of lament—it gives voice to the people who are hurting.
It may feel uncomfortable at first to sing lament together. But sorrow

belongs in the sanctuary. Think about it: It shouldn’t feel weird to worship
the way people do in the Bible. And you will find that singing about both
sadness and joy will deepen your relationship with the Lord and each other.
Lament deepens our compassion. Lament offers us a powerful tool to
minister to others.
Have you ever felt like you don’t know what to say when someone is
struggling? So often we stumble through sentences to offer some sort of
comfort. Or, out of fear of saying something hurtful, we keep our distance.
But lament provides another way. Instead of trying to say something
profound, and instead of being silent, use lament as a framework to listen to
others.
If you have trust with someone who is struggling, help them do what Asaph
did. Invite them to describe their despair. Give them to space to voice the
doubts they’re struggling with. Don’t try to fix them, don’t try to answer
their questions, don’t push them to the second half before they’re ready.
Just listen. And then, use the framework for lament to pray for them and
with them. Share in their despair and their doubts, and recall God’s rescue
and linger in redemption with them as they wait.
Suffering and loss can be so unbelievably lonely. But there is something

powerful when others make your pain their own. This is what lament allows
us to do—we cry out to the Lord together, wrestling with the Lord in our
pain, and making others’ pain our own. We cry out together as God moves
us toward hope.
At our son’s memorial service, we made sure to spend time lamenting

together. Psalm 44 is another lament, full of pain and unsettling questions.
We included it in Eli’s service because it gave voice to our grief. But we
didn’t just have someone read it at Eli’s service—we had the whole
congregation read it together. I can’t tell you how powerful it was to hear
other people cry out with us and for us. They shared our pain and our grief
and cried out to the Lord with us.
This is the power of lament. We weep, we wrestle, we wonder, and we wait
—and share each other’s pain as we cry out to the Lord in worship.
If you’re hurting today, if you are grieving, if you are wrestling with the Lord
—know that he welcomes your cries and your sorrow. And if you’re not
struggling, cry out for people who are.
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

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Worship: Cry Out Together – Psalm 77, Part 5

Posted byjoelkimeApril 8, 2022Posted

“For the director of music. For Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A psalm.”

Here’s why this is concerning. Lament is the largest category of Psalms.

So that shows us that lament is not something we do in order to worship.

And lament’s prevalence in Biblical worship shows us that lament should be

My challenge to you is to incorporate lament in the way you worship

It may feel uncomfortable at first to sing lament together. But sorrow

Suffering and loss can be so unbelievably lonely. But there is something

At our son’s memorial service, we made sure to spend time lamenting

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

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