Turning Real Regret into Real Prayer

Lamentations 5

Main Idea: Prayer is greater than regret.

1. We Pray Just to Survive (5:1-10).
2. We Pray When We Are Suffering (5:11-14).
3. We Pray When We Are Sorrowful (5:15-18).
4. We Pray When We Are Searching for God (5:19-22).

Recently I visited a prison and met with men in a program designed to help them re-enter society. The Pathway to Freedom reentry program is a prison ministry designed to teach men the ultimate form of release from bondage: release from spiritual bondage. What struck me most as I walked the bleached white halls of their prison was a pulsating joy—pristine, immaculate joy. These men were guilty, tried, and punished, yet the solitude of loneliness gave them the gift of reflection. They could ask questions about where they were going and what was next. In their darkness they became dazzled by the light. They were at once incarcerated and liberated, locked up and set free.

The statistics are not perfect, but the comparatively low number of repeat offenders coming from such programs gives even the deepest cynic pause and causes the believer to rejoice.

However, in the general population, the number of prisoners who are repeat offenders is high. Each man in prison has regrets. They wish they would not have done it, wish they were born to different circumstances, wish they could get free, and wish they had better friends or more opportunities. They have lives full of regret. Yet the number of those who return to prison reminds us that being sorry for something does not always evidence a changed life—not at all. Recidivism is the evidence that regret is not reform.

Remembering that prayer is something greater than regret, the book of Lamentations ends with a prayer. It is a prayer that expresses regret for all that has taken place in the rebellious nation. While there is a tinge of hope, this is a rehearsal of just how bad things were when Israel sought to do their own thing and walk their own way.

Prayer is greater than regret. The structure of the song is simply a telling of complaints ending with a tinge of hope. It does not seem there is a formal structure as much as a retelling of the regrets of the nation in the form of a prayer. However, Christopher Wright sees a four-fold division in the chapter, adapted in the outline above (Message of Lamentations, 149–66).

We Pray Just to Survive

Lamentations 5:1-10

This entire section is a prayer. The prayer is framed in remembrance as Jeremiah begins (v. 1). When he says, “Remember,” he is not asking God to recall something God had forgotten. Rather, he is calling God to act on what he knows.

Verse 2 is the song in summary. The thrust of the lament is that other people have God’s chosen people’s inheritance. The theme of inheritance is a huge theme in Scripture. These people were God’s inheritance. This is God’s lot, meaning what God really wanted out of this relationship was them. He wanted their hearts turned back to him. Because God did not have his inheritance, the land, the inheritance of the people, was turned over to pagan people and their so-called gods.

There is something intensely practical here. In this simple prayer we see the power of a lament. We can think of laments as complaints; that is what they are. Yet the word complaint hints at something whiney, irrepressible, or insatiable, as you might hear from someone who could change his situation but refuses to do so. Instead, he whines. He gripes. There is also a hint of hopelessness in complaints. When my young children complain, often it is for things they could fix if they think about it.

This closing prayer is not whiney hopelessness. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. The lament prayer calls out to God in all their suffering and asks God to act.

Think about the power of this prayer. First, it assumes that God hears, that Jeremiah is not praying to the air, but that God perceives the situation. Second, this prayer assumes that God cares. There must be compassion in him. Finally, this prayer assumes that God can act. We often hole up in self-pity and self-loathing with worries and concerns that God could easily take care of. Prayer deflects the ultimate responsibility for the resolution of problems and places it on God. There is more to say about prayer here, but at this point it is enough to create distance between complaining and lament.

• Complaining is rooted in self-pity and is self-centered.
• Lament prayers are rooted in brokenness and are God focused.

God demands that we bring him all our problems. His expectation of every believer is that we will give everything to him in prayer. Head bowed. Palms open. Everything. Jeremiah 5 is a model of this: calling on God to do what we can’t. In this way we honor him by the magnitude of our requests.

The resolution to the problems we are facing right now cannot be seen right now. As someone said, when we think our world is falling apart, it might just be falling in place. Many times I have thought some incident in my life was the death of a dream, the death of a hope that I had. The reality is that God was creating something far better than I could have imagined. I only needed to trust him in that moment. The greater reality lay on the other side of the great pain.

We Pray When We Are Suffering

Lamentations 5:11-14

The suffering that is described here is awful. The young women have been abused, the young men have been turned to slaves, and some were tortured and killed (vv. 11-13). The elders no longer gather to function like leaders (v. 14).

This is a difficult and dark day for this nation. Everything that once made them proud is disastrous. However, remember that this is a prayer. The point of recalling this back to God is not to inform him. The point is that God will act.

The suffering has led to great sorrow.

We Pray When We Are Sorrowful

Lamentations 5:15-18

They are bereft of joy. Their hearts are sick. The great Mount Zion is now taken over by jackals. The deep sorrow they feel is due to their own sin. This is something the nation has caused. They are having to deal with the sorrow of knowing that all of this pain is suffering at their own hand.

If you have ever had the spiritual life sucked out of you, then you understand the dilemma of Jeremiah. I know that joy is often a choice, and often it is a hard choice to make. We are rattled by the consequences of our own bad choices to the point that we cannot go on.

Winston Churchill, referring to the airmen who fought in the Battle of Britain, famously said, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” (“Never”). Never have so many owed so much to so few. It could be said of Judah, “Never have so few lost so much for so many.” Really, they were God’s chosen people and are now the lonely city that sits on the hill. It’s sad. Sin came at the price of lost joy. It always does.

We Pray When We Are Searching for God

Lamentations 5:19-22

Jeremiah is praising God for his exalted state (v. 19). Yet he asks a blunt question: Why has God forgotten them? This is a remarkable question and at first blush is nonsensical. God is the one he is praying to; therefore, he thinks God can do something about this. It would seem you do not ask for a deity to act in his omnipotence while you are jeering at his forgetfulness. The idea, of course, is not memory. God, as he expressed in chapter 2, seems to be against them. This is the meaning of “forget” here. Not that they are out of God’s memory but out of God’s mercy. Why is God treating them like this? This plaintive cry by the crushed prophet reminds us that God is not toppled by our questions.

What Jeremiah wants is expressed in verses 21-22. He wants to be completely restored back to God. He suggests that maybe this is not possible because God may have totally written them off. Yet this can’t be true. Jeremiah already dealt with this in 3:31 when he wrote that the Lord will not reject them forever. His discipline is momentary and his mercies are new every morning.

Application/Conclusion

So, what does the New Testament say about regret? It’s tempting to deal with regret in a cavalier way. We reckon that God’s grace is real and we’ve got to move on, so we bury the regret deep down and try not to think about it. After all, there’s nothing we can do to change the past. As Willie Nelson sang, “Nothing I Can Do about It Now.”

Jesus teaches us something different. He teaches us that regret is not something to be buried but to be wielded for good. Perhaps the most outstanding reminder is found toward the end of the Gospel of Luke (18:18-23).

A wealthy young urbanite asked Jesus a simple question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer Jesus gave is stunningly simple: he should keep the commandments. He replied that he had done that. Jesus then put his finger on the one area of his life where he was unwilling to yield: his finances. It seems he loved to keep the law, but he also loved money more than people. Money, as Jesus taught, was a resource to be invested. So, of course, Jesus goes there. When Jesus called for absolute obedience, the wealthy man went away sad. He had a heart full of regret. The regret was as real as it was useless.

It seems intentional that Luke would follow that story with the story of a man named Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-9). That man regretted being a thief. And, seemingly immediately, he leveraged the regret to gain repentance. He restored what he had stolen. Jesus’s observation was, “Today salvation has come to this house.” The salvation was not evidenced by the regret but by the repentance.

Christians do in fact embrace grace. Wallowing in self-pity is not an option. The effectiveness of a believer is not marked by how little he sins but how quickly he repents. This is the point. The Christian position is not mindless self-denial but to leverage regret for the glory of repentance.

Regret is powerful. In a way it is almost too powerful. The power of regret, combined with the emotion of grief, is not unlike a knife. If we are tied up and have a knife, we can hurt ourselves or cut ourselves free. Repentance is using the knife of regret to cut the ropes. In this way repentance leaves regret and moves to freedom. Regret, a fearful master, can be the pathway to freedom. Remorse, on the other hand, coddles regret in self-inflicting wounds. Repentance liberates; remorse wounds.

It’s strange really. Regret becomes a friend if it leads us to repentance. Regret for some is a dead end; for others, regret is the on-ramp to the road of repentance.

“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly grief produces death” (2 Cor 7:10).

Reflect and Discuss

1. Why is Jeremiah so down? What, in this chapter, is he lamenting?
2. Why is regret a fearful master?
3. Discuss how prayer is greater than regret.
4. Can you recall a time in your life when you were filled with regret? Were you tempted to let the regret lead you to despondency?
5. Does the fact that there is a high rate of repeat offenders after prison teach us that regret and remorse are not the same as genuine change?
6. What distinction was made between selfish complaining and lament?
7. Granted the distinction between complaint and lament is fine; still, does the distinction help us know how to focus our sorrow?
8. Jeremiah’s sorrow was related to how far Jerusalem fell. Can you think of a time in your life when you have experienced great loss?
9. How does the story of the rich young man in Luke 18 relate to this chapter?
10. What are we to do with godly sorrow according to 2 Corinthians 7:10?