There's a kind of tiredness that comes from being scared for too long. It's the exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix. Watching the news makes it worse.

The Psalms have been carrying people through this kind of stretch for thousands of years. They give us a pattern we can use when we don't know what to pray.

The pattern is simple. We cry out to God about what's happening, and we hold onto hope because help is coming. Two moves. The first one tells the truth. The second one takes faith.

Three kinds of seasons

Walter Brueggemann, an Old Testament scholar, noticed something while he was studying the Psalms. He saw three different kinds of life moments showing up in them. He called them seasons of orientation, disorientation, and new orientation (Brueggemann, 1984).

When life is in orientation, things are working. The bills are getting paid, and you can feel God's blessings. This is where we hope to spend most of our days.

Then something breaks. Maybe a diagnosis comes back bad, or the job ends. We move into disorientation, where the ground we trusted is gone. This is what most of the Psalms are written from.

After a long stretch of disorientation, we sometimes find our way to a different kind of solid ground. The crisis isn't always over. But we've learned something we couldn't have learned any other way. Brueggemann called this new orientation. It's a place of gratitude that has been through something.

The Psalms walk us through all three. That's why they matter so much when life turns difficult.

What the psalmist does

When you read a psalm of lament, you'll see the writer doing something that might surprise you. They complain to God. Out loud. With specifics.

They tell God what's wrong and why they feel forgotten. They don't dress it up. They don't pretend to have faith they don't have. They give God the situation as it stands.

Then, somewhere in the middle of the psalm, something shifts. The writer remembers what God has done before. The remembering does something to the complaint. While it doesn't erase the pain. It puts the pain in perspective.

By the end of the psalm, the writer is praising God. The problem hasn't gone away. He's praising because he's standing on what he remembered.

This is the bridge from complaint to praise. We tell God what's wrong, and we let memory feed our hope.

Psalm 13

Look at how this works in Psalm 13:

"O LORD, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Turn and answer me, O LORD my God! Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die. Don't let my enemies gloat, saying, 'We have defeated him!' Don't let them rejoice at my downfall. But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. I will sing to the LORD because he is good to me." (NLT)

The complaint is right there. He's been waiting. He's tired.

Then comes the turn. "But I trust in your unfailing love." That's it. Six words. The whole psalm pivots on that "but."

The writer hasn't been rescued. The enemy is still there. He remembers what's true about God anyway, and that memory brings praise out of him.

How to pray this way

You don't have to wait for a perfect moment to pray like the psalmist. You can do it on the drive home from a tough meeting, or after the kids have gone to bed.

Find a Psalm of lament. Psalm 13 is a good place to start. Read it slowly enough to let it tell you what kind of words you're allowed to say to God.

Then make it personal. Find one verse that fits your complaint and make it your own. If the psalmist says, "How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul?" and that's exactly what you're feeling, say it. Pray it back to God. He already knows.

Stay there as long as you need to. Some days, the lament is the prayer.

Some examples might help. Say you're worried about a child who's pulled away from the family. You can take Psalm 13's "How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul" and pray it about your child. Make it specific. Tell God how long you've been waiting for them to come back, and what you've watched them go through. The psalmist's words take shape as your prayer for your specific situation.

When you're ready, find a verse from later in the psalm that turns toward God. "But I trust in your unfailing love." Pray that one too. Mean it as much as you can.

The same principle applies when you turn toward trust. "But I trust in your unfailing love" is the prayer of someone who knows that God has loved this child longer than they have. The situation may stay the same. What changes is who you're trusting in the middle of it.

You may have to come back to this prayer all day. The fear comes back. The tough conversation comes back. Each time, you can do it again. Lament. Then trust.

A word from Paul

Paul wrote something to the Thessalonian church that fits here. He said:

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NLT)

Notice the wording. Paul says to give thanks "in all circumstances," not "for all circumstances." There's a difference. You don't have to thank God that your friend is sick. You can thank Him in the middle of your friend's sickness for being there with you.

The Psalms taught Paul this. They can teach us too.

One more thing

If you're in disorientation right now, I want you to hear something plainly. God is here. He hears you. The psalmist's confidence didn't depend on his circumstances. It rested on the character of the God he was praying to.

That God hasn't changed.

Tell Him what's happening. Tell him how scared you are. Then, when you can, remember.

He has been faithful to His people for a long time. He'll be faithful to you.