What’s the difference between complaining and lamenting? Maybe on the surface not much. But as with many thing in the Christian life, it boils down to what’s going on inside the heart.

Complaining is about you being right and about getting things off your chest. It’s “me centered” and, if directed toward God, it typically uses God instead of worships him.

Lament is different.

The Lent Devotional, “Journey to the Cross,” puts it this way:

“Lament is not about getting things off your chest. It’s about casting your anxieties upon God, and trusting him with them. Mere complaining indicates a lack of intimacy with God. Because lament is a form of prayer, lament transforms our cries and complaints into worship. Walter Brueggemann says that undergirding biblical lament is “a relationship between the lamenter and his God that is close and deep enough for the protester to speak in imperatives, addressing God as ‘you’ and reminding him of his covenantal promises.” Anyone can complain, and practically everyone does. Christians can lament. They can talk to God about their condition and ask him to change things because they have a relationship with him. To lament is to be utterly honest before a God whom our faith tells us we can trust. Biblical lament affirms that suffering is real and spiritually significant, but not hopeless. In his mercy, our God has given us a form of language that bends his ear and pulls his heart.”