This coming Sunday, Redeemer Fellowship Toms River will be launching into a new series entitled Joy in the Mourning. When we think of the Psalms, often we are drawn to a posture of worship and praise, and the Psalms do offer the people of God a wealth of joyful and worshipful psalms from which to draw. However, the largest grouping of psalms within the book are known as psalms of lament. Over a third of the Psalter is structured as a complaint to God. For many of us, this might come as a surprise, mostly because we have been taught that complaining and grumbling is sinful. But as we read through the Book of Psalms, we can’t help but notice the frustration, and sometimes even anger, bleeding through the pages. God’s people are looking at their lives, and their struggle to remain faithful, and they are growing more and more weary.  

This Summer we are going to explore this ancient collection of songs and poetry, and we are going to ask the question: what does it look like to be honest with God? We might be shocked to learn that God wants to hear from us in all of our brokenness and pain. He wants to walk with us through even the most difficult of seasons. Even though we might be in the thick of “the valley of the shadow of death”, the promise of God, through the power of His son Jesus, is that ultimately we will “dwell in the house of the LORD forever”. The message of the Book of Psalms tells us that God can take it, so we are free to cast it all upon Him. Our “weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning”. This is the hope of the Psalter, as seen in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of David.