Help Me Respond Right!

In this episode, Sister Mary Sanford explores the Book of Lamentations, using Jeremiah’s grief-filled prayer to teach about the power and posture of true prayer. Amid national devastation and personal sorrow, Jeremiah models how to pray honestly and humbly—acknowledging God’s righteousness, taking responsibility for sin, and expressing deep emotional pain. This lament becomes a powerful form of prayer, showing that brokenness invites God’s attention. Sister Mary emphasizes that judgment isn't destruction but a divine reset, leading us back to God. Real prayer starts by accepting God’s ways, repenting sincerely, and believing that even in pain, God is just—and He will vindicate His people. The power of prayer lies not in instant answers, but in our willingness to engage with God authentically, even through suffering. Prayer, especially in distress, is the path to restoration and a renewed relationship with God.

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Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Back to the Press Movement Podcast. Thank you for joining us as we're turning through every prayer in the Bible virtually.

And we're excited because today we get to start another book and we're starting with a first-time guest to this podcast, but by no means a novice to the Word of the Lord. And that is Sister Mary Sanford. And she's here to join us today.

And so I'm going to hand this off. Sister Mary, take us into the Book of Lamentations. Well, first, before I start, I want to thank Sister Takoya and the Press Movement for having me today.

It is always a privilege to share and talk about the Word. As mentioned, we are talking and this today's lesson starts with the Book of Lamentations. We are in the first chapter and the prayer that we are reading, I'm going to go ahead and go to that prayer, is starting in verse number 20 through 22.

And it says, Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress. My bowels are troubled. My heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled.

Abroad the sword bereaveth. At home there is as death. They have heard that I sigh.

There is none to comfort me. All mine enemies have heard my trouble. They are glad that thou hast done it.

Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me. Let all their wickedness come before thee, and do unto them as thou hast done unto me. For all my transgressions, for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

So we're in the Book of Lamentations. And just to give some context to this particular prayer, in Jewish history, Jeremiah is considered the author of Lamentations. If you look from Josephus, just to back where that is, he wrote Lamentations around the end of Jeremiah, the book of where the Jeremiah ends.

What we do know that during what's happening at this time, if you want to give it a year, about 586 BC, and what has happened is Nebuchadnezzar, King Nebuchadnezzar, which is Babylon, has already not only sieged, attacked Jerusalem. In that first siege, he took some captives. He took Daniel, who was a contemporary writer of this book.

Ezekiel was taken. So these people were actually removed from their country. And at this point, now the country has been completely, utterly overthrown.

The government is overthrown. The cities are overturned. And if you actually look at this first chapter, which we're going to go into in just a moment, in the chapter to get to this prayer, this is one of the worst of the worst days, the worst of worst times.

And that's kind of what the history of what's going on. But in order to understand, I mean, because this is God's people, they already watched them overtake Israel, which was overrun by Nineveh. So you've heard the story of Jonah.

Those were the Assyrians. But then Babylon comes and destroys the Assyrians. So you got enemies overtaking your brethren.

You watch that happen. But then someone comes and overtakes the enemy of your brethren, and they're coming for you. And the background of this particular author is he had a really hard job.

Because first of all, Jeremiah, who we can pretty much prove for the most part that he's the author, even though limitations doesn't name him. He watches this, he goes through this. And there's two things happening.

Your country is in such a bad state, they've gone against God. As a matter of fact, it really is Deuteronomy being fulfilled, particularly the 32nd chapter, we're going to actually look at the prayer and go back to the 32nd chapter, I think around the 25th verse that reflects that prayer. But in Deuteronomy, we love the quote that 16th chapter and all these blessings, you'll be the head and not the tail.

And there's 16 verses of blessings, but I believe there was 50 something if not 60 verses of curses when you go against the commandment of God. And when you turn against God, and Israel had repeatedly turned against God. And he promised if you do, I will let your enemies overtake you as a consequence.

So the background of this is now everybody has to live with the consequences of the entire group of people, the entire countries turning away from God. So imagine America, America, the country of the free, the country of many of blessing, and you have a president, you have a governing power, you have stuff in place to take care of you, you have protections, you have police. And now because the country is in such a dire state, God says there's a consequence to your lack of following my commandments.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And because he loves you, he allows consequences so that one, you know that he doesn't say things in vain, that he says what he means. And two, judgment is to help you get better judgment.

It's so that you can get back to God. It's so that you make better decisions on this side of heaven and hell. So even though this is the worst moment, you have to remember Jeremiah starts ending his chapter with, I know the thoughts that I have for you in 29, they are good and not evil, but to bring you to the key word and expect it in.

So even though this is a bad moment, and now it's not one person's sin, it's the entire country. And even though Jeremiah, he was found righteous. He was called to be a prophet and to give a message.

He didn't know at first, he thought, man, God's going to come through like he always comes through. Guess what? God says, no, that's not the case. I'm going to let him take over the country.

This is going to be bad. There's going to be blood in the streets. The Bible says, and you'll see in the first chapter of Lamentations that they didn't leave son on the streets.

They were taking their daughters for their own. Daniel was a Prince. He was a son that was taken, captured at this time.

Ezekiel was, he was a husband that's taken from his country, removed. You no longer have a government. The King is deported, eventually just dismissed.

And it is just the worst of the worst. So think about that. Think about there's no police on your side.

The police are actually coming to get you. That's what's going on at this time because they replaced God's presence with their foolishness. They didn't stop their methods and their rituals, but they took out God and still did their rituals.

And because God's presence was replaced with their tradition, but worse their sin in the house of God, not just in their homes. You find in Ezekiel, the contemporary, he said, look what they do in my house. And so God does, he judges, he allows the house to be overturned, not one stone.

He destroys it all. They take the vessels, the gold and the silk, all that stuff is taken. It's removed.

So all the riches of the land. So if you had jewelry, if you had stuff in your house, it now belongs to your enemy. Your daughter and your son even was taken, sometimes made a eunuch, never able to have children to serve in the King's court.

That's where you get a Nehemiah. So all these authors, that is the time of lamentations. So now that brings us to the book of Lamentations.

The word lament means to grieve, to mourn. It is to cry at a funeral, literally. It's an obituary.

So a lamentation is literally like reading an obituary program, but actually a poem. You know how people write poems, you know, that you read to honor or to talk about the life of the person or the situation. In this case, Jeremiah or the writer is lamenting.

And it actually is a poem. The first four chapters are in a Hebrew acrostic. So if you read it in Hebrew, it means that different groups are A, B, C, D. So an acrostic poem is alphabetical order.

This was a poem that is mourning. He's watched family members die. He's watched countrymen.

He's watched his daughters be taken and be removed. He's watched the walls be destroyed. There's no protection to the city.

He spends the whole chapter talking about the destruction that has happened. And if you go through it, the city was full of people, but now it's a widow. So it compares it to a married person that loses their spouse.

That is a different kind of pain. You've been with this person. You've spent your lifetime with this person and they're now dead.

That's how he compares this city. This city is now a loss. And it wasn't like she started off as nothing.

No, you were the top of the top and now you're made to be nothing. You know, when you're at the top, you got to keep God. The whole point, if you don't get anything out of this, the lamenting, the mourning came from sin because the wages of sin is death.

It will cause you to mourn, but mourning can help you. It's the grief and the sorrow that can actually get you to the point where you can pray. And that is what Jeremiah is at.

You know, at this point, you know, he was even in jail. You have the enemies taking over, but then his own brethren turned on him because they didn't like the fact that he said, Hey, God's going to judge you. There's a consequence to sin.

It's God's help when he allows stuff to happen, because then he gives you a chance. Judgment, say it with me, judgment gives you better judgment. And if you respond, right, it becomes conviction and not condemnation.

But God wasn't trying to destroy Israel forever. He was trying to help them turn back to him. And so it is just a grieving process, but it tells you why it tells you she's in great servitude in verse three, she dwells in the heathen.

There's no rest. It's not a time where you can sleep easy. I think of a house that there's violators in a house, and it's a horrible thought.

But you think of a person that is scared in their own home, because there's invasions, there's intruders. And that was the life of these people. At any time, there's violation.

At some point, Jeremiah, he stops talking about it from, it's about Zion and about just Judah, and it becomes so personal. And it wasn't no longer you sinned, and now you got us in trouble. It's, man, what did I do? Lord, let me somebody cry out because of this consequence that we're receiving.

Before he even starts his prayer, I love his perspective, because as he's talking about the worst of the worst, and he's talking about how the Lord has commanded concerning Jacob that his adversaries should be round about him. Jerusalem is as a minstrel among them. She's cast out.

She is bloody and just not allowed to be among normal people and the public. But in verse 18 of this chapter, before he goes into the prayer, even though God is judging, he still understood that God's decision is right. God is righteous.

And even though God gives consequences, we have to be okay with God's consequences. It can be hard to watch when God judges who you love, what you love, your home, because it's so bad that I've got to deal with everybody. I think of Genesis and Sodom and Gomorrah.

Sodom and Gomorrah was not destroyed because of the sin, because we're dissenting about grace can more also abound. It was because there was not enough righteous to keep back judgment. In this time, there wasn't enough righteous.

Though Jeremiah was righteous, it wasn't enough righteous. So God says, my righteousness has to reset. He's doing a reset.

It seems hard, but it's really a reset. And Jeremiah acknowledges that God, whatever you decide, whether it's smacking my hand, knocking me upside the face, tearing my behind, it's righteous. That sets you up to get an audience with God because you're recognizing that God's way is the way.

And you can start to get right by recognizing, wait a minute, it's God's way that's right, not mine. And so you have to start there. In verse 18, he begins to talk about Israel.

It looks at Israel because idolatry, which is serving other gods is also compared to adultery, which is cheating on a spouse. Because when you serve someone and you do, and you bow to the will and you sin, it is like cheating on God because you belong to him. And so the lovers though, they turned on him.

Now we get to the prayer. Behold, oh Lord, I am in distress. My bowels are troubled.

My heart is turned within me for I have grievously rebelled. A brother's sword bereave us at home. There is as death.

Again, he's already established God. You're right. Now that you recognize who God is and that whatever God does, he has the right to do.

Catch that. He has the right to do because he is righteous. So whatever he does, he has the right and it is right.

Determine in your spirit, whatever God does, I will be all right. I'm going to come up to what God determines is right. And so because of that, now you can tell God how you feel.

Now you can go to the God who's touched by the feelings of your infirmities and that though he's judging you, he doesn't want you to hurt. Even though this hurt is going to help you, he wants you to talk to him about how this spanking that he's giving you is hurting you. He wants you to include him on the feelings.

Though that's like the parent that says, now, you know, I'm whooping you because I love you. I used to hate that. Don't tell me you loving me in this belt is hitting this here skin.

I don't care that you love me right now. But what he was saying is it's okay to tell me that it hurts. When it talks about the bowels, it means that your stomach cramps, things are so heavy.

When I don't know if you've been in that position, when you've seen something so bad, you just can't even hold your food. That's what he's talking about. My bowels, he says, I'm in that kind of distress.

So that's why this book is about lamenting. He said, I'm no longer blaming anybody else. I just want to take responsibility and do my part that because God, you're touched by my feelings.

I'm sorry. Whatever needs to be set right. I did it.

And I am going to take whatever responsibility I have. Maybe I didn't reach out. Maybe I didn't cry aloud on the streets like I could have.

Maybe I didn't speak out on my job. I rebelled. It's no longer just my country.

I'm making it personal. It's about me. It's about how can I change? He said, they have heard that I sigh and there's no one to comfort me.

Some things are so bad. Doesn't matter how you try. Nobody can make you feel better.

No one. But this is a key. He says, my enemies, they heard of my trouble and they're glad.

And thou has done it. Thou will bring the day that thou has called and thou shall be like unto me. Somehow this prayer shifts.

It shifts because he tells God how he feels first. Because remember, we've already exercised God. I'm not telling you wrong.

I'm not fighting your decisions. I'm not bucking against you. Help me to become all right.

But I'm going to tell you it hurts. I'm going to tell you, man, repentance is not supposed to feel good. Repentance according to second Corinthians is sorrow.

Great sorrow when it's godly, when it makes you turn to God, lead it to repentance. It's a morning. But even though it doesn't feel good, he says, but my enemies are laughing at me.

They're like, look, see, I told you they weren't nothing. The beautiful thing is Jeremiah's prayer changes. He said, wait a minute, since they're laughing at me and you're judging me, they're wicked anyway.

They live wicked. He says, that's okay. You may be allowing my enemies to overtake me today, but they're laughing at me.

And they're laughing. It's okay because you're not going to let them just laugh at us for long. The point is even your enemies are only allowed to overtake so long because God's going to judge them even though he used them to judge you.

And so Jeremiah's prayer changes. He says, oh, give them what you've given me because they're wicked. And they're laughing at the fact that you're getting me.

Let me give you a tip. Don't get happy when you see God judge your brethren. When they get in trouble, don't get happy because God doesn't like to spank his children.

What parent wants to hurt their child? You let that other sibling laugh at the other one getting a beating. If Ethan is laughing at Reagan getting beat, Ethan's probably going to get a beating too. Well, not at 20, but I get the principle.

Right. Not at 20, but you get the principle, right? You don't celebrate judgment. Exactly.

You don't get happy at someone's judgment. And so he switches his prayer to God. Get those enemies.

It is a confidence that God is going to deal with them. You don't get to just beat up and do anything to the saints of God. Don't get it twisted.

Even in God's judgment, oh, God's going to handle those that put their hands on you. He's only going to allow them to to bring you to a purpose. I close with this last statement.

Let all their wickedness come before thee. Do unto them as thou has done unto me for all my transgression. For my sighs are many and my heart is faint.

So even though in this chapter, he ends on a sad note, he ends with, look, get them God. In the Old Testament, you know, you see this more often than the New Testament. You're allowed to say, get them.

You can't get them. But you can say, God, if they going to get God, go ahead and get them. Get them.

He doesn't end there. Again, I'm doing an overview of limitation, but this is his first prayer. This is his first obituary poem.

This is his first. Everything's destroyed. This is bad.

This is the worst it could ever get. Think of your worst scenario. And sometimes life happens and whatever worst scenario, it's the worst and maybe even worse than what you could come up with.

But even in that, God is still right. God is still good. And guess what? God's going to get them and he's going to repay them for what they did to you.

And he ends his prayer and says, look, I'm faint. I have no strength. I have no energy.

My heart is faint. My heart is broken. My heart is weak.

And that's how he ends this particular prayer. Sometimes your prayer doesn't end with the other side of victory. Sometimes you have to keep on praying and it's in stages.

And the first part of your prayer is you feeling like you're nothing because that is the humbling. But a broken and a contrite spirit, well, he not, he won't disregard that. It's the brokenness that makes him here.

And trust, just like Jeremiah, he wrote in his earlier book around the same time that he's writing this, he's going to get you to that expected end. And that this judgment is going to help you have better judgment and you will be all right. And that is why no matter where you find yourself, whether you're praying through the hardship, with the hardship or watching the hardship, you know, prayer reaches every single situation.

Join us next week. Join the movement, join the community, like share and subscribe to this podcast. Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook.

Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears. I know some of us have prayed and were wondering how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice. It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have.

You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer. It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith.

Visit PressToPray.com.