A Lamentable Life
The Distress of the Covenant-keeper
Dear friends, don’t be surprised or shocked that you are going through testing that is like walking through fire. (CEV) 1 Peter 4:12
The Covenant documents are the foundation for history. God sets things in motion, like any good farmer, and returns later to pour out the promised blessings or curses, to separate the wheat from the weeds. To be under Covenant is to be under these Words, to be transformed through testing into the shape given in blueprint on the mountain. This necessary process of being sifted like wheat is both personally and communally distressing.
From Douglas Green:
The most frequently recurring Psalm form is the lament. Out of 150 psalms, 50 concern individual lament and another 70 concern communal lament. That’s almost half the Psalter.
If the Psalter is a poetic portrayal of life in Covenant fellowship with God, then it is a lamentable life. It is a life with a surprising amount of hardship and suffering, conflict and pain, or to use Philip Johnson’s summary word, distress.
