“When things were going great I crowed, “I’ve got it made. I’m God’s favorite. He made me king of the mountain.” Then you looked the other way and I fell to pieces.
8- 10 I called out to you, God; I laid my case before you: “Can you sell me for a profit when I’m dead? auction me off at a cemetery yard sale? When I’m ‘dust to dust’ my songs and stories of you won’t sell. So listen! and be kind! Help me out of this!”
11-12 You did it: you changed wild lament into whirling dance;
You ripped off my black mourning band and decked me with wildflowers. I’m about to burst with song; I can’t keep quiet about you. God, my God, I can’t thank you enough.”’
This is the Message paraphrase of the core of Psalm 30, a David song, prayer. The Psalms are, as Peterson translates, ‘wild laments.‘
What are such prayers, songs? Their opposite is phrase here as a ‘whirling dance.’
Davis whirled as he dance into Jerusalem. His happiness overflowed as he preceded his people, God’s spirit presence filled him so, he danced as though no one was watching.
His joy overflow; from the spirit to his heart; from his heart to his limbs, his tongue, he danced and sung.
Laments reverse this joyful process. They cone from what we see outside: death and illness; trials and betrayals. Words fail. Isolated, our homes, our beds, our hearts are flowed, overflowed into by the sorrows of our sights. Our voice is, grows, to groans.
Laments are heart sorrows without words. Unspoken, they dance into our hearts, without ceasing to cry.
“….the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groaninwardly as we wait ... Romans 8: 22 -23
Laments are what we dance, sing, live to without Jesus. Lament is our live without Jesus.
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