The common prayer formula A.C.T.S.?
What is that?
A lament is most definitely a type of prayer.
A lamentations is essentially grieving over the poverty of God's people and is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to lead us into prayer and supplications. If we did not often lament we would likely find ourselves to be cursed with so much pride and arrogance because of our blindness towards our own exceeding sinfulness and lack of fervency in our love.
For example:
[b]Lamentations 1[/b]
4. The roads of Zion are in mourning
Because no one comes to the appointed feasts.
All her gates are desolate;
Her priests are groaning,
Her virgins are afflicted,
And she herself is bitter.
Consider this verse in Lamentations. What would such a cry produce in us to pray?
To pray for the paths of Zion which is the way of the righteous pilgrimage unto the Lord's mountain, the Presence and Throne of our God.
And the appointed feasts? What are those? They are the feasts of Israel ordained by God. We might recognize one of these better as the [b]Passover feast[/b]. The death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ are all fulfillments of the feasts of Israel and the subsequent outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of [b]Pentecost[/b], another feast.
Another example of a lament might be something to the affect:
"Lord, I am weak and weary, my heart is cold and my prayers are like ice, my flesh suffers from the afflictions of the lusts of my sin." -- that is the lament.
"O Lord, deliver me from temptation and the evil one, to hate every evil way and strengthen me with the love of You." -- that is the supplication.
Yet, it is all prayer because it is all fellowship and communion with our God and Father.
