Read the Psalm

These pilgrim prayers return to a familiar place with the word “afflicted” in verses 1 and 2. Psalm 120 used the word distress, and it comes from the same root word as afflicted, expressing the idea that one has been put in a tight, narrow spot. The connotation is that there does not seem to be room to breathe.

The Psalms of Ascent come back to this place of lament because times of affliction are so common. We can’t walk too long or far without experiencing them or being reminded of them. Even if we are not currently experiencing a time of distress, remembering affliction is critical. It helps us not to turn the “blessings” of Psalm 128 into promises. It aids us in walking with others in love and patience as they suffer. The psalms of lament comprise approximately half of the 150 psalms we find in Scripture. It is significant to note that the prevalence of lament is an invitation to include prayers of lament in our lives.

We may be tired of distress or even fearful of it, but it is part of what it means to be human. Suffering is possible because we were made in the image of God. To be in distress (affliction) occurs because we are made to love and be loved. The center of this love is our experience of God’s presence in our lives. It is being at home as well as the journey of walking home with God. 

As things distract us from His presence and perhaps distort our understanding of His presence in our lives, our suffering and pain increases. These distractions and distortions can derail us, and they can also become pathways for a deeper understanding and experience of God. Understanding this reality is at the core of how we navigate suffering … ours and/or the suffering of others. Thomas Keating made the observation that: “The presence of God relativizes all human experience in a way that transcends (it) without necessarily delivering you from the particular aches and pains or violence you are suffering.” Affliction invites us to open our hearts and pour them out to God. In the space that is opened with lament, love enters and fills. Until space is opened, our hearts are often too full to receive.

Writer Annelise Jolley observes: “One of the most paradoxically comforting responses to suffering is to name it. We long to acknowledge death or illness or betrayal for exactly what it is. We want a friend who sits by the hospital bed and affirms that this isn’t fair. We want a chaplain who holds the hand of bereaved parents and refuses to point out a silver lining.”

Lament invites us to name the suffering, but we may struggle to do so if we do not feel safe and secure in God’s love. Lament opens us in such a way that we experience that we are safe in the love of God. When we cling to our fear, anger, and hurt, it can become the dominant way of thinking and perceiving. As we pour out all these afflictive emotions to God and meet God’s love and compassion, we experience safety at home in this love. Romans 8 makes clear that nothing can separate us from God’s love (i.e., His presence) and the implication is astounding: if nothing can separate us, then everything is place of connection. We can trust God in our lament, knowing that we meet Him there. When the psalmist writes “yet they have not prevailed against me,” the idea is that even the affliction could not take them away from God’s love and the journey home.

It is in the real conditions of our lives, not where we’d like to be, that we experience God’s presence. He is always unconditionally present in the specific conditions of our lives. Often, the real condition of our life is that we want vengeance on those who have afflicted us. We tend to go one of two ways with feelings of vengeance: we fixate on them, or we try to ignore them. What if we prayed them? This is the invitation of lament and specifically an imprecatory psalm. An imprecatory psalm prays for and asks God to bring affliction upon others. The words of Psalm 129 specifically pray for the demise of the afflicters: “Let them be like grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up.” The prayer also asks that they not have anyone in their lives who might say: “The blessing of the Lord is upon you.”

This is not a “nice” prayer, but it is real. It is not parroting the words and emotions we think we should have or would even like to have, but praying the hard, cold pain. Can we really pray this way? God invites us to trust Him with all of who we are, including the part that may desire harm to be done to another. The effect of this kind of prayer is that our desire for harm and retribution is transformed. The safest place in the world is prayer as we pour our hearts to Him.

Reflection questions: do you feel safe in God’s love? How does praying a prayer of lament seem to you? Are you able to pray this way? Do you sense an invitation from God?

Prayer: Lord, I entrust all of me to you. I feel deeply my affliction, and I don’t think I can pray for the well-being of my afflicters. Not right now. I lean upon Your goodness and grace. Amen.