Fire Drills

When was the last time you had to participate in a fire drill?

Although not a fire drill, I had to evacuate the student center during the Bama Bound freshman orientation in response to the fire alarm going off. Thankfully, there was no fire, but it got me thinking, “Why do we do fire drills?”

We do fire drills to be ready to respond safely in the moment of crisis. Now, imagine if we never had fire drills. We never practiced any kind of crisis preparedness. What do you think would happen?

It’s not so hard to imagine because many of us have no crisis preparedness plan for our spiritual life. We just hope we will make good choices and respond to pain in the right ways and be just dandy.

What if we could have a fire drill for our spiritual life, a planned response for when tragedy breaks upon us?  We will already know the kind of prayer we will pray. We will already know who we are going to call to help and support us. We have already determined how we will respond to our pain before it is ever felt. Such a readiness won’t prevent a crisis from happening, but it will help us get through that pain so much better.

In the Psalms we see a God gifted resource to respond to our pain, we see the practice of prayers of lament. These prayers have 3 simple steps, 1) we voice felt pain to God, 2) we ask God to intervene, and 3) we end in recognition of God’s goodness, love, and faithfulness. (I am indebted to my friend Gil Banton for this succinct outline for lament prayer.)

Psalm 13 is a great example for us:

1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?    

How long will you hide your face from me?

2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts    

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?    

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.    

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”    

and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;    

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,   

 for he has been good to me.

These prayers of lament are like a fire drill for us that help prepare our souls to respond to pain in life-giving ways. We learn to interact with God about our pain, we learn to commune with him through it, and in so doing open ourselves up to His comforting presence and the work of the Holy Spirit. We learn to move our attention from our pain onto him. I hope you will practice these three simple steps in a lament prayer of your own in response to your griefs.

May you be ready and may you know God’s comfort!