seeds of prayer

In Psalm 126, we're given two pictures of prayer.

The first is a portrait of praise, the joyful response to God of those whom He has blessed, those whose fortunes have been restored.  Their mouths are filled with laughter, and their tongues with shouts of joy (vss. 1-3). 

I wonder how long it's been since you and I have praised God such that we are indeed laughing with joy in Him.  I remember this kind of "pinch me, this must be a dream" kind of praise when I came to believe that God wanted me, wanted to save me, and to invite me into His service.  Joyous praise, so different from the dour litanies of thanks which I more often hear from my lips and those of others.

The second is a portrait of lament, the tearful response to God from those whose fortunes have been reversed.  Their eyes are flooded with tears, and their mouths can only weep (4-5).  

In the usual church circles I've been part of, this kind of lament is rare, reserved for funerals or national disasters, when, again, we run a sad litany of complaints that keep our emotions in check.  I contrast this with a recent gathering to pray for America's youth in which I and many others uttered loud cries lubricated by tears and snot.

It seems as if our prayers of praise and lament are part of a cycle: those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them (vs. 6).  It's like the Negev, a Wadi in Israel which is most often lamentably dry, but then, in the winter, is, praise be to God, restored with nourishing waters.  Perhaps our earnest prayers of lament - as we ask, seek and knock - are the seeds of prayer that are to be sown in the field of our life, such that they will eventually yield sheaves of praise, also seeds of prayer sown in the fields of the world.

Can we ask God to lead us more fully into seed-bearing cycles of lament and praise?