During the 1960s age of existentialist folk tunes, a popular song was titled “Old Friends.” It was hauntingly beautiful, yet lacked the hope of resurrection. The poetry described two old friends, sitting on a park bench like bookends. The lyricists sang, “How terribly strange to be seventy.” The story ends unresolved: “Old friends. Memory brushes the same years.
Silently sharing the same fears.” Pagan stoicism has its merits, but most of us are not silent in our fears; we complain. This theme of complaining is ancient. Lament can bring us into conversation with God—or undermine our trust in Him. Penitents concerned about their prayer life during trials should take consolation from Psalm 55: “O God, listen to my prayer; do not hide from my pleading.
Hear me, Lord, as I complain.” It is holy and fitting to use fear and suffering to turn to God in prayer and complaint—provided we do not make Him the object of our anger. We honor God when we turn to Him and acknowledge His supremacy. Yet it is more common to disengage from God and complain apart from faith. During the Exodus, the Israelites’ complaining often resembled comic sketches.
They asked Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” (Exodus 14:11–12) Parents recognize such complaining: it goes beyond expressing needs; it is the whining of spoiled children. At root, whiners do not solve problems; they are disobedient.
As wise parents remind unruly children, they want what they want, and they want it now. On the road to the Promised Land, the Israelites faced numerous obstacles that required obedience and cooperation with God’s grace. Yet