When You Don’t Know How to Pray: The Biblical Practice of Lament (Ep 03)
Have you ever started to pray and realized you had no idea what to say? Yeah, me too.
In this episode, we open up about one of the most honest struggles in the Christian life: what to do when your prayers feel hollow, filtered, or just not quite right. Drawing from the Psalms, Lamentations, and the cross itself, this episode introduces the ancient, Biblical practice of lament and why it might be one of the most courageous expressions of faith in the life of a believer.
In This Episode, You’ll Discover:
Why we've been conditioned to filter our prayers and why that's working against us.
What the Greek word parresia reveals about how God actually wants us to show up.
How David and Jeremiah modeled raw, unfiltered honesty with God, and He responds to it.
Why Jesus' final cry from the cross changes everything about how we think about lament.
The three components of biblical lament, why you need all three together, and what it looks like practically.
Why lament belongs in every season, not just your lowest ones.
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Episode 03 | When You Don't Know How to Pray: The Biblical Practice of Lament
Welcome to The Purpose Project Podcast
Hey, friend. Welcome to The Purpose Project Podcast, where we talk about what it really looks like to live, love, and lead with purpose and authenticity in the messy middle — that space between where you are and where you want to be. I'm Valerie Jones, a Christian life and leadership coach. And around here we don't do hustle culture, perfectionism, people-pleasing, or self-help band-aids.
Instead, we're all about biblical truth, brain-based tools, and emotional health — so you can walk out your calling with courage, without burning out or sacrificing what matters most. Each episode we'll dive into real-life stories, engaging conversations, and relatable teaching moments to help you get out of your head and into the life God's calling you to live.
Whether you're navigating change, feeling overwhelmed, craving clarity, or just trying to feel like yourself again — take a breath and lean in. You're in the right place. Let's dive in.
When Prayer Doesn't Feel Easy
Well, hey friend. Welcome back to The Purpose Project Podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I wanna start with something today that many of us have probably experienced at one time or another, yet we don't likely talk about it. Here's the question I want to ask you. Have you ever started to pray and then realized you have no idea what to say, or that the only words you can manage seem to fall seriously short in the moment?
I know I can't be the only one who's been there. Maybe it's that you're heartbroken. Maybe it's that you're angry or confused. Maybe you're tired, or you're feeling overwhelmed or disappointed about something. You believe in the power of prayer and you know that God is good, but somehow any words that you can manage to string together just seem hollow or empty — like they're bouncing around the room instead of connecting you to the heart of God.
And you don't quite know what to do with all of that when it's time to pray. I can relate to that, and it can be really problematic for us because prayer is the way that we invite God into our lives and into our situations. It's how we communicate with Him, how we build relationship with Him. So how is it that we're supposed to pray when we can't put our feelings into words?
How do we pray when what we're feeling doesn't match what we think we're supposed to say? I think a lot of us have gotten good at praying the nice prayers, but real talk today — I'm not always sure that those nice prayers are the most honest prayers. Because sometimes we're hiding. We're hiding behind the right words instead of trusting God with what's actually going on in our heart.
We filter and we edit and we clean it up before we bring it to Him. And that's probably because somewhere along the way, prayer has become something other than what it's intended to be, which is an honest conversation with the one who loves you the most.
Again, I know that you want to pray and that you know that you need to pray. Yet you don't quite know how to put what you're experiencing into words, and so that's why we're talking about this today. Last episode, we were in John chapter 11. We talked about how grief and faith can coexist in the same moment, in the same story — grief has a place in the presence of Jesus.
And I shared some of my own story about loss and how that shaped me, and honestly how it shaped the way I understand and engage God. But on the other side of that season, I was left with a big question.
What does it actually look like to handle pain and disappointment in a way that honors God, yet feels honest and authentic? I just wasn't sure how to navigate it in the moment, and it actually delayed my healing. And I think the question points to something that a lot of us may be wondering about without even realizing it somewhere along the way.
It seems we've convinced ourselves that even in our prayer lives, we have to sound like we have it all together. We think we need to show up composed and calm, cool, collected — the very best version of ourselves, like God is grading us on our presentation.
What God Actually Invites
But Scripture actually invites us to do something else. Hebrews 4:16 says that we can come boldly to the throne of our gracious God and find mercy and grace to help us when we need it the most.
I love that invitation. I love that promise. It's important. I did a little word study on the word boldly from this passage this week because I wanted to know what God meant by that. That is not a word we typically associate with seasons of difficulty or pain. The Greek word is parresia, and in today's language we would probably use a word like that to describe freedom of speech, or speech that is direct and unfiltered and candid.
It's courageous. In fact, so much so that it usually causes friction or creates some kind of pushback. One definition said it's "free and fearless confidence in a courageous manner." And I know when we're talking about that kind of unfiltered honesty with God, it can feel a little frightening, because what if we say the wrong thing? But God isn't going to get mad at you or reject you for saying the wrong thing.
He may correct you or redirect you because He disciplines those He loves, but He's not sitting on the throne waiting to zap you in anger. When you say something that He doesn't like, He's sitting on a throne of grace — which means that this impulse to heavily edit our prayers kind of misses the point of prayer entirely.
What Is Lament?
So what is this supposed to look like in hard seasons? Well, it looks like prayers of lament. Lament is not a word that we use very often these days because sometimes the word itself carries a negative connotation and it can throw us off a little bit. And for the longest time, I really didn't understand it myself. But lament is not a complaint.
It's not wallowing. It's not a lack of faith or a sign that you're doing something wrong or that something's wrong with your relationship with God. Lament is characterized by emotional intensity — or even a rawness, if you will. That's something we are uncomfortable with. But I would argue that lament is one of the most honest and courageous expressions of faith that there is.
Jesus illustrates the difference and the importance of honest prayer versus polished prayer. In Luke chapter 18, He tells the story of two men who go to the temple to pray. One of them is a religious leader — a Pharisee. The religious leader stands up and he prays what sounds like a very impressive prayer.
It's polished, it's public, it's pleasing to the ear. It's actually a self-gratifying prayer. It checks all of his religious boxes. Yet God wasn't pleased with that prayer. The other man is a tax collector, someone who the religious community would've looked down on. And he wouldn't even lift his eyes toward heaven.
He stood far off, but he simply prayed, "God, have mercy on me. I'm a sinner." That's it. It wasn't performative. There was no polish. Just humility and honesty. And Jesus says in Scripture that that second man — the tax collector, the one with the unimpressive, unpolished five-word prayer — went home justified with God that day.
It wasn't because his words were perfect or just right. It's because they were real and honest and marked by humility. And so prayer of lament gives us the language for these kinds of moments — moments of pain and difficulty. And it works because you're not bringing your pain to someone who is far away or unmoved or uncaring.
You're coming to the one who is described in Scripture as a man of sorrows — someone who is deeply acquainted with grief, someone who empathizes with every single one of our weaknesses. Which means that when you bring Him your heartbreak and your confusion, your anger and your exhaustion, you are not coming to someone who's standoffish or who doesn't understand. You're coming to someone who's been there, and who loves you with an everlasting love. But it does require humility and honesty.
Lament is what it looks like to stay in conversation with God — to stay connected to Him even when that conversation is hard. Even when you don't understand, even when what you're feeling is heavy and confusing and nothing seems resolved, it's not pulling away from God or withholding anything from Him. It's coming close.
Scripture is full of these kinds of prayers. The Book of Psalms alone contains 58 Psalms of Lament. That's about one third of the entire Book of Psalms. So one third of one of the most beloved, most quoted books in all of the Bible contains a lot of these kinds of prayers. Honestly, these are the chapters I used to skip over because they made me uncomfortable. They can be hard to read, but they do have a prominent place in Scripture, which tells us that they're necessary to our walk with the Lord.
This isn't something new. It's a well-documented conversation between God and His people that's been happening for thousands of years. So I want to show you two examples today that I think will change the way you approach this kind of Scripture. And honestly, what I'm hoping and praying for you is that it will change the way that you pray.
Two Biblical Examples: David and Jeremiah
First, let's talk about David. Now, if you grew up around church, you know David — shepherd boy turned giant slayer turned king.
He was described in Scripture as a man after God's own heart. I love that description. And we often put David on a pedestal. Honestly, I get that; but sometimes I think we forget exactly how messed up David's life really was. I think sometimes we forget exactly how emotional and intense and raw David was.
He was incredibly honest with God, and he also knew how to encourage himself in the Lord. And I love that about him. David is also responsible for the majority of the Book of Psalms. So when you open that book, you don't find the words of a man who filtered his prayers.
Instead, he was saying things like, "Lord, how long will You forget me? Will You forget me forever? How long, Lord, will You hide Your face from me? Why are you so downcast, my soul? Why are you so disturbed within me?" He said things like, "Why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far off from saving me?" These are not the prayers of someone who has it all together.
These are the prayers of someone who is desperate and confused, heartbroken — struggling and bringing every bit of it directly to God because he was fully aware of his need for God's power and God's presence in his life. And here's what I find so interesting about that. God didn't reject those prayers.
He didn't reject David. He didn't say, "David, you're being too honest. You're being too emotional. You're too raw. You're just too much." He instead preserved those prayers through Scripture, meaning that generation after generation of believers have been reading David's most vulnerable moments with God and finding themselves in his words.
That is not an accident. God preserved those prayers because He wants you to know that that kind of honesty is not something that He merely tolerates. It's something that He invites. It is a necessary part of the conversation.
The second example is Jeremiah. He was a prophet called by God to deliver a message to the nation of Israel. It wasn't an easy message. It was a message they did not want to hear. But Jeremiah was remarkably faithful in his calling. Yet his faithfulness didn't keep him from pain.
It didn't shield him from heartbreak or confusion or exhaustion. In fact, Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet. He wept openly and he wrestled honestly. He said things to God that might make some of us squirm — like, "Lord, You've deceived me. Lord, I've been ridiculed all day long. Everybody's mocking me."
He didn't dress it up, he didn't tiptoe around it. He brought the full weight of what he was carrying directly to God. And when we do that — when we bring our honest pain to God — we're not bringing Him something that makes Him uncomfortable or makes Him feel impatient. We have already seen in Scripture that He understands and that He empathizes with our pain. That is so important for us to know and to remember. And Jeremiah knew it.
Jeremiah gives us another beautiful example of biblical lament in one of my favorite passages of Scripture. It's in Lamentations chapter 3. He starts in verse 19 by saying, "I remember my affliction and my wandering. I remember the bitterness and the gall. I remember it well, and my soul is downcast within me."
Again, no filtering, no softening, no tiptoeing. He names it honestly. But then there's a shift. It's not a denial or a dismissal of what he just said, but it is a clear shift. He says this: "Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope." Another translation says it this way: "Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this."
That word yet is the hinge point in this passage. It doesn't erase what comes before it, but it holds space for both the pain and the promise. Jeremiah is saying, "This is what I'm experiencing. This is what I'm feeling. This is my reality based on the circumstances — yet I'm choosing to remember something that gives me hope."
And then he continues: "Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness." Do you see what's happening here? Jeremiah doesn't pretend that the pain isn't real, but he doesn't get stuck there — focused only on what he's feeling. He chooses to call something else to mind, something that will give him hope. And that's what lament does. It's honest about what is real, but it's anchored in what is true.
The Three Components of Lament
And I want you to know this, whether you're in a hard season right now or not. Lament isn't just for your lowest moments. It isn't just an in-case-of-emergency kind of prayer that you pull out when everything falls apart. Of course, you use it in those moments — but it also belongs in your regular rhythm with God. It's meant to be a regular part of your prayer life with Him. Just like confession and repentance, just like petition and thanksgiving, it belongs in every season, and it follows a recognizable pattern. Lament has three pieces that I want to talk about. There's acknowledgement, there's petition, and then there's declaration — and that declaration leads to expectation.
Now here's why this matters. Lament is what keeps you engaged with God even when you're confused about what He's doing. It's what helps you stay. It's what keeps you connected even when you're feeling completely undone. It gives you language. It gives you words for the moments when everything in you wants to run away and quit, and you're dangerously close to losing hope.
This is something I wish that I had known in the middle of the hardest seasons of my life. Let me show you what it actually looks like.
Acknowledgement is where you start. This is where you say what's real — not what sounds spiritual, not what you think you're supposed to say or what you're supposed to feel. It's not the cleaned-up, edited version of your heart, but what is actually true for you. And you say it directly to God — it's a direct appeal. It takes a bit of self-awareness. It could sound something like: "God, I don't understand this. This hurts more than I expected. God, this is upsetting and I'm angry. I simply don't know what You're doing right now." And I wanna reiterate for you that this is not a lack of faith.
It is not a signal that something's wrong with you or with your relationship with God. It's the beginning of an honest conversation. And friend, I want you to hear this. You cannot change what you refuse to acknowledge. God heals what you're willing to bring to Him, not what you try to hide from Him. And if you won't name what is real, you often end up carrying something for far too long — something that you aren't meant to carry, something that God wants to heal and redeem. You have to acknowledge what is real.
And after that, there's petition. And this one is simple. You ask. You ask God for help, for relief, for intervention, for His presence. You come with open hands, recognizing your need. You say, "I need You. I know I can't do this without You." That is no small thing.
Finally, lament ends with declaration. And it's a declaration that leads to expectation. This is what makes lament categorically different from complaint or despair. Despair has no hinge. Complaint has no shift. Both stay stuck in pain. Both have a hard time seeing a way forward. Both lose hope.
But lament? Lament feels the full weight of pain and disappointment, yet it still finds its way back to God. Declaration is Jeremiah's "yet I still dare to hope" moment. Again, it's not a denial of what comes before it — but it is a choice. It's a deliberate decision to call something else to mind. And please hear me.
This isn't forcing yourself to feel something that you don't feel. It's not about pretending that everything is okay when it isn't. But it is saying, "This hurts, but I know that You're still good." It's saying, "I don't understand this, but I know that You're faithful." It's saying, "I can't see what You're doing, but I trust that You're still working." "My heart is broken, but I know that You're still with me. I don't want to walk through this, God, but I know that You'll never leave me."
Those kinds of declarations have nothing to do with your circumstances and everything to do with God's character.
You don't land here because your situation suddenly changes when you pray this prayer, or the pain suddenly disappears. You land here because you know who God is and you know what God has done. It is not a feeling, but a choice to trust what is true. And that choice opens the door to expectation.
It gives a way to hope — not forced positivity, but a settledness, a groundedness, a confidence that God is faithful and that He is not finished. That the story is not over. It is, simply put, an honest expression of faith under pressure. It's the shape that our prayers take when we stop filtering and editing and start trusting God with what's true and real — when we show up authentically and honestly and boldly.
And listen, something happens when you pray this kind of prayer — when you actually move through all three pieces. When you acknowledge what's real, when you petition and ask God for help, and then you declare what is true about Him, something changes. When you take what's been living in your chest, what's been weighing you down, what's been robbing you of joy and peace, and you say it out loud to God, something releases.
It isn't always immediate or dramatic, but something does shift in you when you stop holding on to what you're never meant to hold, and you give it to Him instead.
Lament and the Cross
When Jesus was on the cross — in the most agonizing moment of His life, in the final hours before He surrendered everything, before He died — do you know what He prayed? He said, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" That's from Psalm 22, word for word — a Psalm of lament. Jesus, fully God, fully human, in His most desperate moment, reached for the language of lament.
It's what came out when everything else was stripped away. He was showing us from the cross that lament is okay and that it has its place.
So friend, if you've ever felt ashamed of your unpolished, honest prayers, or you've wondered whether God can handle what you're feeling — or if He's even interested in what you're really feeling — I want you to remember Jesus in that moment on the cross and be brave. Because lament takes courage.
Why This Matters
Again, it is the most honest kind of conversation that you can bring to Him. I, after losing my first two children, I didn't know that I was allowed to pray this way. I thought my prayers had to be pretty. I thought they had to sound spiritual. But what I was feeling and what I was thinking wasn't pretty — it didn't sound spiritual.
Not at all. I didn't know that I could say those things or be honest with God about that. I'm talking about saying things that I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to hear. Those raw, intense emotions — those "I don't even know what I'm saying" kinds of things.
But I finally decided that pretending wasn't working, and I refused to keep hiding things from Him that were slowly sucking the life right out of me. I refused to keep hiding things from the only One who had the power to actually do something about it.
When I figured this out, it was the first major step toward healing. That's what learning this language allows. It makes space for healing, and that matters. Learning to practice prayers of lament matters far beyond just your own life. It matters for everybody in your sphere of influence. It matters for the people that you love and the people that you lead. Because here's the thing — healing means wholeness.
Healed people can help people. But unhealed people? Unhealed people often hurt people. Unaddressed pain, unaddressed disappointment will leak out of you. It will show up in your life and in your leadership and in your relationships in all kinds of ways. So this biblical practice of lament — it keeps our grief and our pain and our disappointment and our bitterness from becoming our identity.
Yes, it gives a voice to those things, but it doesn't let the pain and the disappointment become the loudest voice. It doesn't let the bitterness make the decisions. It doesn't let the pain or the grief write the story, because we are not people without hope. First Thessalonians 4:13 says that we don't grieve like people without hope — because of Jesus.
And understanding the language of lament is what helps us to live that out. It's what allows us to feel the full weight of something without being crushed by it. So this is the answer — this is the answer to the question that I asked at the top of the episode. How do you navigate these moments in a way that honors God, yet feels honest?
It's this. It is knowing and understanding this form of prayer. That's exactly how we're meant to navigate the hardest moments of our story — with honesty, without completely losing our footing.
The Invitation
So I want to ask you something as we're wrapping up. Is there a conversation that you've been avoiding with God? Something that you've been holding back because it doesn't feel spiritual enough, or because you're unsure of His response? Or maybe you're holding it back because saying it out loud feels too scary.
Well, today the invitation is simply to bring it to Him. To acknowledge it, to ask for His help with it, to declare His goodness and His faithfulness in the middle of it — and then be filled with expectation and hope that He will do what He says He will do. You do not have to clean it all up before you come.
You can come to God with what is real, and you can come boldly. Friend, don't hide from Him. Don't withhold from Him. He can handle every single bit of what you're carrying, and He is a perfectly faithful, ever-present help every single moment of our lives.
Until Next Time
Hey friend, thanks for tuning in to The Purpose Project Podcast. I hope today's conversation helped you feel seen and a little less alone in the messy middle of life. If this episode encouraged you, would you take a second to share it with a friend or leave a quick review? That will help other women who need hope and encouragement find this space, and it truly means the world to me.
You can always find free resources, upcoming events, or join the email list by visiting my website, thepurposeproject.us. Remember, friend — you were created on purpose and for a purpose. Until next time, be brave. And eyes on Jesus.
Meet Your Host
I’m Valerie Jones, a Christian Life & Leadership Coach and the host of The Purpose Project Podcast. I created this space for Christian women who are navigating the messy middle: those in-between seasons where faith is real but stretched, and life doesn’t look the way you expected.
My approach is rooted in biblical truth, emotional health, and brain-based methods because I believe God designed us as whole people, and transformation and personal growth should consider our whole selves.
“Lament feels the full weight of pain, yet it still finds its way back to God.”
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