Knowing God Through Pain

Flourishing Through Knowing God: Recovering the Prayer of Lament

What if many of the struggles we experience in life—our lack of passion for Christ, our diminished energy for evangelism, our difficulties in marriage, stress from work, fear of the unknown—what if they are not isolated problems at all?
What if they are simply symptoms of something far more serious that is lacking in our lives?

What I propose is this: flourishing in life comes by knowing God better.

Rather than being pulled and driven by the fears and distractions of this world, we were made to be intoxicated by the love of God—a love that flows from truly knowing Him.

Knowing God Is More Than Information

Knowing Him is what we call theology.
Theology is what you think and say about God.

The problem arises when theology is kept only in the realm of intellect. Biblical knowing forbids this. In the Greek, knowing implies experiential and intimate knowledge, not mere awareness or academic familiarity.

What we think and speak about God (theology) inevitably shapes how and what we speak to God (prayer and intimacy).
Theology and prayer cannot be separated.

Psalm 27 captures this beautifully:

“The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)

And yet, just a few verses later:

“Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me.
My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek.” (Psalm 27:7–8)

A person’s prayers reveal what they believe about God and how they believe God relates to the world. This is why the recorded prayers of Scripture are so significant. They show us not only what to think and say about God, but also what to say to God.

Throughout this reflection, we are asking:

• What should we pray for?

• What arguments should we use?

• What priorities should we adopt?

• What beliefs shape our prayers?

Learning to Pray Through Lament

Psalm 13 gives us a window into one of the most prominent ways people pray throughout Scripture:

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, Lord my God…
But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.”

This is a prayer of lament.

A lament is a passionate expression of grief—often expressed through song or poetry as prayer. Lament encompasses loneliness, anger, guilt, hopelessness, pain, and depression, as well as our response to sickness, injustice, and loss.

Lament is the biblical and spiritual response to suffering. Rather than suppressing difficult emotions, Scripture teaches us to honestly acknowledge pain as an essential component of faith.

Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.

It transforms pain into a platform for worship—we see this with Paul and Silas singing in prison.
It appeals to God’s compassion, seeking His intervention.
It is a prayer of confidence, trusting that God hears the cries of His people.
It reflects honestly on the human condition, but ultimately rests on the character of God.

The Psalms themselves reveal this balance: roughly 60% praise and 40% lament. Worship that excludes lament is incomplete. Praise honors God for what He has done; lament cries out for His intervention amid pain and trouble.

Lament Is Not a Lack of Faith

Sadly, many believe lament was discontinued with the shift from the Old Testament to the New. Others assume lament shows weak or deficient faith.

But lament is deeply human—and deeply biblical.

The Hebrew faith embraced the full expression of humanity before God. The Torah commanded feasts and festivals, fasts and mourning. God welcomed joy and grief, celebration and sorrow, all in His presence.

It is as though this robust expression of humanity prepared the way for the incarnation—when God Himself would become fully human.

Biblical characters danced, sang, laughed, shouted, complained, cried, confessed, mourned, and lamented before God. Jesus Himself entered into this tradition. He prayed the Psalms. He aligned Himself with human sorrow. And as He hung in suffering on the cross, it was a psalm on His lips—Psalm 22—that He prayed.

Hebrews tells us:

“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears… and he was heard.” (Hebrews 5:7)

In light of Jesus’ lament, we can say this: to be fully human as God intended is to exercise lament before Him.

We Do Not Give God the Silent Treatment

The prevalence of lament in the Psalms tells us that pain, suffering, and injustice are meant to be brought fully before God.

Some hesitate to do this. They fear that honesty—especially anger—reflects weak faith. But this timidity is not humility; it is fear. Fear that God might reject us if we are too honest.

Yet small children do not hesitate to cry out to loving parents. Only abused children suppress their pain, believing no one cares.

The cry of despair to God is not the absence of faith—it is a sign of great intimacy.

Anguish and bewilderment are not something to outgrow. They are intrinsic to faith itself. Job’s friends treated suffering like an academic problem to be solved with formulas. True wisdom recognizes the mystery of life and avoids shallow platitudes.

At the heart of worship is surrender to a God we do not fully understand but fully trust.

Lament Is the “Between”

Lament lives in the space between:

• Sin and mercy

• Pain and hope

• Injustice and justice

• Suffering and joy

Lamentations captures this beautifully:

“I remember my affliction… yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.” (Lamentations 3:19–21)

Hope arises not simply from choice, but from what is brought to mind:

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22–23)

To lament is itself a gift of grace—it means we are alive. And in lament, we remember the character of God revealed in Exodus 34:6: gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love.

That remembrance builds confidence in His final response and vindication. Grace wins in the end.

Learning to Lament Well

As we lament alongside the psalmists—Psalms 10, 13, 22, 77, and 86 are good places to begin—we are not only speaking to God, we are also speaking to ourselves.

We ask, “Why are you down?”
We pour out our hearts.
And then we exhort ourselves: “Hope in God.”

We remind ourselves that God has set us apart, chosen us, purchased us, redeemed us, regenerated us, and adopted us. He guards us for salvation. He holds us with His strong arm. He carries us even when we feel we are barely holding on.

He is our Father, and His mercy endures forever.

As we do this, confusion and fear slowly give way to confidence and hope.

To lament before God is to encounter His grace, deepen our trust in His good purposes, and fix our eyes on our final destiny—to be transformed into the image of His Son.

And in that, we flourish—not by avoiding pain, but by knowing God more deeply within it.