The Importance Place of Sorrow in the Life of a Christian

I believe that we have mistaken joy for happiness. 

What I mean by this is that we know the Scriptures call us to give thanks and to have joy in all circumstances.  These are clear statements.  And so we have assumed that we need to be happy at all times.  We pretend each Sunday morning that there are things that do not bother us that really grate at our souls.  We endure hardship and feel guilt because we are not going through our day with a smile.  We have mistaken happiness and assumed that God has called us to happiness in every moment and every circumstance. 

The Scriptures do certainly teach that we are to have joy and to give thanks.  But the same Scriptures also contain a book called Lamentations.  They contain a whole group of psalms that are known as the psalms of lament.  There are multiple examples of God's chosen leaders crying out to him in their pain and despair and agony and fear and God does not condemn them for doing so.  It would seem to me that when we look at the whole of Scriptures that there is the ability for a believer to both lament their situation and praise and thank their God for the very same situation they are lamenting. 

Which is why I think we need a better understanding of the place of sorrow in the life of a believer.  When people die well before they should, when illness takes someone we love, when pain is a part of the daily life of a person, when an infant dies we need to know that this is not the way it is supposed to be and God tells us so.  We can lament illness and pain and grief and hurt.  These things are not a part of the world as God created it. 

In fact, I think we need to have more godly lamentation.  We need to lament the things that are not as God intended.  If we just put on a happy face we are doing disservice to Christ who came to die to make the wrong things right again.  So cry out in the midst of things that are wrong and unfair.  And in our grief and sorrow we will find our praise all the more meaningful.