What If Your Pain Is Supposed to Lead You Here | Mornings with Mico

What's going on, my name is Meeko, and welcome to my one-on-one time with God. This week is Holy Week, and so we've been kind of taking a look each day at just the different postures of the soul that we see either Jesus experience or just what his teachings reveal to us during Holy Week in the scriptures, and so far we've taken a look at surrender, we've taken a look at cost, and today we're looking at lament, and just to give us a quick definition so that we're all on the same page moving forward, lament, it's a passionate expression of grief, sorrow, or regret, often manifested through mourning or wailing, and I think that lamenting is one of those, one, it's not exclusive to the believer, like lamenting, we all experience grief, we all experience pain, we all experience suffering, and I think that if I'm honest, the church, I don't think it talks about it nearly enough, just posturing ourselves in lament, right? I think we tend to, we can tend to just kind of gloss over the bad part and just focus on, but God is good, and focus on, you know, the, I don't know, you know, whatever the silver lining may be, and I think that it kind of does a disservice, one, to the people that we're, you know, to people we're discipling, to us and our walk, it can set these unmet expectations of how grief and sorrow is supposed to look, unrealistic expectations, I mean, and then also just to people who, you know, who you're evangelizing to, right, like it kind of creates like this false facade of joy in the midst of, or happiness, you know, in the midst of like, just terrible things, and I'll say one, that's not what the Bible teaches, it's just not biblical at all, so much so that there's actually a book in the Bible called Lamentations, the entire book of Lamentations is just a man, a writer, just lamenting about, you know, lamenting to God, just grieving, and we get a glimpse into like his intimate personal vulnerable thoughts as he's going through this process, as he's crying out to God, and he's not being dramatic, right, like at this point in time, we're going to dive into it here in a second, but at this point in time, Jerusalem is destroyed, the city's gone, the temple is gone, and I don't know, like, you know, if you have, you know, if that paints a clear enough picture to you, you know, a modern day example that I think of when I'm picturing, you know, the state that he's in with losing Jerusalem, and a city, and a temple, the modern day example that paints that picture for me is Katrina, and how after Katrina happened, and I wasn't there personally, but just watching the documentaries and hearing stories, you see, like, life as people knew it was no more, right, people lost family members,

and you see just the devastation, people felt abandoned down there, and alone, and it was just a horrible time after the flood, and like, that's the picture that's painted in my mind when I think of where the writer is as he's, you know, lamenting to God just about life, and, you know, how things are going, like, after losing Jerusalem, after Jerusalem is destroyed, and the city is gone, and the temple is destroyed, and Lamentations, it's a short book, it only has five, it only has five books, we're going to dive into, or five chapters, we're going to dive into chapter three, starting with verse 19, I'll read that for us really quick. I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall, I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me, yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope, 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, I say to myself, the Lord is my portion, therefore I will wait for him, the Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him, it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord, and I think open, I think, I think verse 19 really opens up very well, just to kind of paint this picture. of like his mental state, the state of his soul in this moment where he says, I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I will remember them and my soul is downcast. Like these verses, they stem from like as we've, as you look into like the world that he's in right now, the devastation that he's in, like this is the world that's produced these verses. This is, this is the ground that these verses stem from. And, um, he's just taking a moment, um, as we're seeing here and just sharing, like how, how devastating it is and how it's impacting on how his soul is downcast. How you say, as I remember my affliction, I would imagine his thoughts were just consumed with like, God, what is this? You know, like, how did we get here? Like, what is this all about? And then, you know, maybe even why me? Why us? Why, why this, right? You are who you are. Why are we experiencing this? And, and I don't know. I think, I think, I think that's natural for us all even today to, to have those thoughts. And I think, um, I think like, it's, it's, it's not like, we're not wrong for that, right? Like we see here him doing this, right? Like we're not wrong for that. Like those are legit questions to cry out to God about. I think that what, what, um, what's remarkable is how it turns so quickly though in verse 21, in spite of all of the devastation that he's experienced, he says, yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope because of the Lord's great love. We are not consumed

for his compassions never fail. And he says, I call this to mind, right? I call hope to mind. He remembers his afflictions. It's like, that's almost passive, right? Like you can't help but remember, right? These, these are the things that, that, that, that, um, his reflection, his affliction, it's so present that naturally he remembers that. But in this moment he chooses to call to mind and therefore he has hope. And I think that one, this isn't a mood shift, right? It's not like, oh, now he's perky and you know, everything is great, but it's, it's simply him choosing hope in this time of devastation, not ignoring the reality. Sorrow is real and he chooses hope. Um, grief is, is real right now, right? It's his experience. That's his reality. Um, and he chooses hope. He, he, he, devastation, um, sorrow, loss, suffering, all of that is very real. And yet he has hope. This moment, as terrible as it may be, this time as terrible as it may be, it's not absent of hope. And I think that as we experience things in life, right, and naturally will grieve, this is a great example of what healthy grief looks like. It's not rushing past the hard part. It's not pretending like the hard part isn't there. He is lamenting. He is going through some things, bro. Life is terrible. He's not rushing past that, but he sees his lamenting as part of the process. He's not dwelling there. That's not where he's like making his bed and sleeping. And I'm just going to live in sorrow because we see here in this moment in verse 21, yet I call to mine and therefore I have hope. He chooses, he chooses hope in this moment. I'm reminded of, um, most recently I lost, um, my brother. Um, I lost my brother and I was having a conversation with my mom. We were kind of processing together just on her thoughts and her emotions and all of this. And she had gotten, it seemed like she was just going down like, uh, uh, like a dark path or like a spiral just in a moment, right? Like she's been super, you know, like strong through this, but there were times where we would have conversations and I'm just like, like, and looking back, it's like, she was lamenting, but in that I didn't recognize it. You know, I don't know. I, I, me just naturally saying, mom, we can't, you can't look at it like this. Let's focus on this. So let's focus on, you know, um, on, on, on getting to the other side of this or, you know, emotionally. And, and she said, no, son, this is my process. She was like, I'm not like, I get it that this isn't like, I won't just live here in this space, but this is a part of my process.

It's, it's choosing to embrace that process, but still clinging to the hope, to the belief, right? Choosing to look to God in it, not ignoring what is there. There's a verse in the Bible, man, where when Lazarus dies and everyone around is mourning, his sisters are crying, everyone is sad. Everyone is you know, it's they're grieving. They're grieving the loss of their brother Lazarus, their friend Lazarus. And Jesus. He knew he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew what he had come there to do. He knew he had the power. He knew that was his way. He knew what he was going to do. But yet in that moment, he didn't try to get them to to pull. He didn't try to pull them out of that space of grief. Instead, he joined them in it. He sat with them and he wept with them, knowing that moments later, verses later, he was about to call Lazarus out of that tomb. But yet in this moment, he thought the better thing to do was to simply sit with them and mourn with them. I think this teaches us something about grief, when that grief is good, that it serves a purpose. He did that for a reason, right? I think that as as I look at that story, man, and and I see how God, you know, how Jesus embraces grief in that moment. As I mentioned, you know, I recently lost my brother. I just kind of pondering that like I sat with God and I was just journaling, talking to God. Journaling is definitely a very intricate part of my walk with God.

As much as I, you know, I read my scriptures and have great fellowship with with my brothers in Bible studies and stuff like that and prayer and fasting. But in addition to that is journaling that is that has played a huge role in my walk and I highly suggest you do that as well, man, journaling and just writing down your thoughts in real time, whatever it is you're dealing with. And I was I'll take a moment and I'll share with you a passage, a recent passage that I had wrote as I was grieving the loss of my brother. And I was just processing with God, like, you know, the purpose of grief and just the process of it. And I guess if this needed a title, we could call it Good Grief, right? Grief is necessary. It's a process. We need to embrace it and let it do its work in us. Grief isn't something to numb or escape. Grief isn't something to be a part of, you know, something to numb or escape or suppress. Grief is good and has a purpose. Grief doesn't feel good. It feels heavy. It feels somber. It hurts. But it's not in vain. Grief exposes love. Grief refines joy. It burns off what's shallow. It strips away illusion and reveals what's real. It teaches us that joy isn't the absence of sorrow, but the presence of God in the middle of it. It forces us to let go of what we thought we needed or how we thought things should be or would be

and cling to what remains, to a deeper, truer source of joy, to the presence of God instead of the outcomes we wanted. It's like this grieving process. It refines hope, right? It, this, you can spend your time in that sorrow, hoping for one thing, and then when it doesn't go that way, but yet God calls us to hope, it's like, okay, Lord, help me to fine tune what my hope should stem from, what my hope should be founded on, the focus of my hope, right? To shift it from hope and outcomes to just hope in God, right? I want to go here. Something that I want to leave you with. And I just hope, I just want to make this clear that lamenting is, it's not the absence of faith. It's actually an act of faith. An act of faith. Lamenting is, it's us in faith crying out to God in the midst of our sorrow. I say, I say we can recognize it as an act of faith because of where we're directing our cries to. I'm reminded of Jesus on the cross and how some of his final words were, my God, my God, why have you forsaken? And this is a moment where, like, this is a real moment that he's experiencing on a cross. He's in his divine mission and it's brought him to this place and he feels separated from God and he's crying out to God. This moment is, it represents like a collision between his divine nature and his human experience of pain and feelings of being forsaken. I think that's something that we can all relate to, right? Where we see Jesus, he's not even stepping away from his divine nature in experiencing this.

It's like those worlds collide. Our experiences, our lamenting isn't separate from our faith. When we direct that lamenting to God, those worlds collide. I think that what's so worthy to note here, man, is in this verse that we see here, it's in Jesus' last words, he's actually quoting a psalm. The psalm starts in chapter 22, where the writer says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus on a cross saying those words is actually fulfilling a prophecy of his divine mission. I don't want to dive too deep into the theology of that, but what I do hope to convey in this is this thought, seeing it from this thought, like what if whatever you're dealing with, whatever you're grieving, what if that's meant to lead you to a place of lament? What if that is part of the purpose of what you're experiencing, of what you've experienced to lead you to this place of lamenting? But maybe, I don't know, because of, you know, our stubbornness, our nonchalance, sometimes, you know, life can condition us to just have defense mechanisms where we, you know, we become stubborn or too tough to cry out. But what if God is looking at you, watching you suffering and saying, if you would just cry out to me, like that is why I'm allowing this. That is part of the purpose and is to get you to a place where you stop leaning on yourself. And yet you cry out to me. So I want to leave us with a question to reflect on. Is there a loss or hard season in your life? You've never let yourself fully grieve. Maybe it's something you're dealing with now. Maybe it's something from the past. And what would it look like for you to give yourself permission to grieve, to take some time and simply grieve, even if it's only for a few minutes? It'll be good for you. I pray for us. Lord, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for your goodness. We choose to acknowledge that there are some things that you have placed specifically. In grieving. In loss. Things about you that you want us to know. Aspects of this relationship. You hide them in the place of grief. You hide them in a place of loss, of suffering, Lord. These losses, these suffering, as we lament, Father, that this is a part of the process. It's a part of the process for us to get not just simply to the other side of it, Father, but for us to be more anchored in you. For you to use it to refine our perspective of you. To walk closer to you. Or reveal whatever is in our heart that may be hindering us from leaning into the grief the way that you would call us to.

May we cry out to you. In the midst of all that we're dealing with, Lord. Not out of hopelessness. But in trusting you and your sovereignty. And your love. Pray for us in your son Jesus name. Amen. God bless.