Biblical Verses (NIV)
- Psalm 22:1–2 – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? I cry out by day, but you do not answer. “
- Psalm 22:24 – “For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.”
Exposition
Many believers in business suffer in silence, fearing that expressing pain signals weak faith. The Psalms tell a different story. Psalm 22 opens with one of Scripture’s most desolate cries — the very words Jesus prayed from the cross — yet closes in confident praise. That movement is not denial of pain; it is pain carried honestly into God’s presence until hope surfaces on the other side.
Lament is not doubt. It is deep trust expressed through raw honesty rather than performed composure. The leader facing insolvency, a failed venture, or a prolonged struggle is invited to tell God exactly how it feels — because He can be trusted with the truth.
Psalm 22:24 delivers the turn: God has not hidden His face. He has listened. The sufferer’s cry reached Him and was heard. This is not a promise of instant resolution, but of unbroken presence.
For the BAM leader walking through a hard season, lament becomes the doorway to hope, not its opposite. What feels like silence from heaven may, in time, be traced back as evidence of a Father who never once looked away
Moment of Reckoning
During a season of severe financial distress, a business owner wrote her prayers as raw, unfiltered laments — telling God plainly that He felt absent. Three months later, reading them back, she could trace a specific sign of His presence following almost every line of despair — provision she had missed while in the thick of it. Her laments had become her clearest testimony of God’s faithfulness
Key Takeaways
• Lament is not a failure of faith — it is faith speaking honestly.
• Scripture moves us from desolation to confidence, showing lament as a path, not a dead end.
• God has never hidden His face from those who cry out — He listens, and He stays
Discussion Questions
• Are you bringing God your honest reality, or a performance of composure?
• What might it look like to lament instead of merely enduring in silence?
• Looking back at a hard season, where can you now trace God’s presence you didn’t see then?