Although complaining and lamenting have some things in common, they should not be mistaken for one another. The Bible is plainly against complaining and grumbling. But lamenting is common and acceptable. Jesus never grumbled but he prayed a prayer of lament from the cross. So what is the difference and how can we express our own fears, doubts, hurts, disappointments and problems without being offensive to God? To answer this question I am going to compare the grumbling of Israel after the Exodus and the lament found in Ps 22.
The book of Exodus records many incredible miracles. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob saw the plight of his people, remembered his covenant with them and acted to redeem them from slavery in Egypt (Exod 2:23-25). The story of the plagues on the Egyptians will probably be familiar. When the firstborn sons of Egypt died, Pharaoh finally let Israel go (12:29-33). Even then he changed his mind and went after the Israelites. But the Egyptian army was drowned in the Red Sea (Ch 14). Israel had a brief time of trust in the LORD (14:31). There was rejoicing as they sang the Song of Moses (Ch 15).
But as soon as the people encountered difficulties they began complaining and grumbling. “Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they travelled in the desert without finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What are we to drink?’” (Exod 15:22-24). The LORD provided water for them, but the grumbling and complaining continued. “The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death’” (Exod 16:1-3).
For a start, the people complained to Moses and Aaron. Their focus was very earthly (compare Col 3:2). It is as if they could not believe in anything not concretely in front of their eyes. The complaining was not directed to the one who could solve the problem. Second, they had an unrealistic nostalgia about the way things used to be. They preferred the idea of going back to slavery, which seemed to them to be much better than their situation after their rescue. Perhaps they believed the maxim, ‘better the devil you know than the god you don’t’. This is a serious lack of realism.
Most significantly, the grumbling Israelites did not believe that God is good. They believed that he had some kind of secret agenda for them. The miraculous deliverance from Egypt seemed irrelevant to the people. They thought that God has no follow-through, that he lies and had lured them out there with some miracles and with no good intent. There was no faith despite the amazing things which had happened in the previous few days and weeks. Although deliverance from Egypt, destruction of their enemies in the sea and provision of water in the desert were powerful indicators of what kind of God is the LORD, they refused to trust in him.
When we look at the life of Jesus, we see the opposite to this attitude. After his baptism, Jesus went into the wilderness, just as Israel had done. There he did not eat for forty days. During this time there were no miracles. But at the end of it, Jesus still trusted in the LORD his God. He refused to demand a miracle; he refused to test the LORD; and he refused to worship anyone but the true God (Matt 4:1-11). At no point did Jesus complain or grumble. He demonstrated the faith that Israel as a nation lacked.
It is on the cross, however, that we see how Jesus responded to severe stress and overwhelming sorrow. He did not complain, but he did lament. In Mark’s Gospel, the only words Jesus says from the cross are the first words of Ps 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34; Ps 22:1). The words of lament are the words of one who trusts in the God he cries out to. It is not a complaint of one who has no faith. Jesus believed that God is good, which is why he could not understand why he had been abandoned.
The psalm begins with a cry of anguish (vv 1-2). Then it moves on to praise of God and what he has done in the past (vv 3-5). Back to the problem, that is, there is no rescue from the situation and the torment (vv 6-8). Then the psalmist again reminds God of how long the LORD has been his God (9-10). He cries out for deliverance from the wicked people who surround him and seek to do him harm (vv 11-21). The remainder of the psalm (vv 22-31) is praise for the deliverance he believes will occur, not merely for the psalmist but for all the people who rely on the LORD and his provision and protection. The entire lament is directed to the God who is faithful and answers prayer.
The grumblers and the lamenters have similar complaints. Life is hard. But the person who laments does so with trust, praising the God who seems to have failed to fulfil his promises. Praise indicates that the person trusts that somehow the promises must be fulfilled because God is faithful. The fact that God is real and faithful makes the whole thing quite inexplicable. Why has he not done what he promised? The person who complains does not believe that God fulfils promises. He or she believes God to be inherently unreliable. The complaint stems from the internal belief that God is not good and has no good purposes in mind, only something bad. He may have done something miraculous but he has some nefarious purpose for this miracle. The lamenter knows that God has delivered in the past and will somehow do so again. The problem is that it has not happened and he or she does not know why not. Yet there is trust that God is good despite what is happening. The evidence of God’s power may even be less for the one who laments than for the one who complains. But the trust is greater.
Life is difficult whether you are a person with faith in God or not. Being a Christian does not make life’s difficulties go away. But the Bible exhorts us, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing” (Phil 2:14). This does not mean that we can never express pain, hurt, fear or doubt. It does mean that these must be directed to God himself in faith rather than directed against God without faith. The person who laments does not offend God, but the person who complains does not please him. The situation you find yourself in is not the difference between these two responses. The difference is trust. Trust that God is good and he is faithful. When you believe these things, you will take your problems to him, trusting that although the problem remains unsolved, God is still on your side. He will be faithful to his promises.