We speak honestly of what we know. God meets us there.

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

I often think the sighs of the Spirit are heard most clearly in the laments of the Psalms. Praying the laments is difficult (June, page 7; see back issues at  www.thelutheran.org). But so often they are our deepest and truest prayers.

A dear and faithful friend who lost his son in a car accident once told me that for a long time Psalm 88 was the only Scripture that sustained him. This relentless lament alone voiced his despair with the stark honesty his experience demanded.

“O LORD … my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave. … You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. … Why, O LORD, do you reject me and hide your face from me? … I have suffered your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me. … The darkness is my closest friend” (Psalm 88; New International Version).

Some say God, in utter grace, allows us to express such lamentation until the time we can return to faithfulness. But I contend that the importance and truth of our laments goes much deeper: To lament is to be faithful.

The lament, more than any other form of prayer, speaks directly to God of the reality of suffering. And God knows when our prayers are true.

Consider the book of Job. Job’s speech is rife with lamentation. He rails against the Almighty, throwing the issue of suffering into God’s face, begging for a relationship that speaks to the truth of his loss and pain. Job’s friends are appalled by his words, which they deem unfaithful. The friends reason that humans should never question God’s motives but, in all humility, should accept suffering as the righteous judgment of a just God.

The argument between Job and his friends go on and on. Then the Lord speaks directly to Job, transforming Job’s relationship to God. In Job 42:7. the Lord turns to Eliphaz, Job’s friend, saying, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends;/or you have not spoken of me, what is right, as my servant Job has. ”

There it is: The protective theological defenses for God spoken by the friends are lies, but Job’s accusatory laments contain the truth about God. The difference is not that Job reasoned more clearly or was a better theologian than his friends. They all assumed that suffering is always tied to divine judgment.

But in contrast to his friends, Job refused to overlook the depth of his suffering. He refused to protect God from his despair. He refused to believe God wasn’t active in the world. Perhaps most importantly, Job continued to speak directly to God, praying for justice, relief and comfort. True prayer, true speech to and about God, never uses theological platitudes to deny the reality of the world.

Martin Luther emphasized precisely this point in his theology of the cross. God comes to us incarnate and open to suffering. We encounter God within the world in all of its complexity. We come to God not by denying the truth of our experience in the world but by embracing it fully. The theology of the cross points us not so much to a particular doctrine about God as to a particular way of doing theology that never bypasses the cross. When our theology is rooted in the cross, we call things what they are. And we find God and God’s truth hidden in places we least expect.

The power of the lament is this: We come to God boldly, directly, defenses stripped away, with nothing standing between us and the Almighty. Standing thus, we can do nothing but speak the truth from our depth. This isn’t to say that we suddenly have right understanding, only that we speak honestly of what we know. God meets us there.

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD. … I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word !hope” (Psalm 130:1, 5).

True prayer, true speech to and about God, never uses theological platitudes to deny the reality of the world

Jacobson is professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn. This is the seventh in a 12-part series, “The gift of psalms: Celebrating and sharing the blessings of God. ” For an outline of the series, see  www.thelutheran.org/psalms.html