Grief - Guy Moore

Insight Paper: Grief Author: Guy Moore Insight Papers Index

GRIEF
by Guy Moore

We know that God is concerned about our faith and obedience, but does He also really care about our feelings related to our losses? Does he care about our grief?

Grief has been defined as intense emotional anguish caused by loss, disaster or misfortune. In the Old Testament we see the ideas of grief, sorrow, lament, mourning, anger, vexation, pain, torment, and affliction used interchangeably. We find the word “grief” in the New Testament interpreted as distress, hurt, agony, sadness, groaning and deep sighing.

The Bible reveals to us that the experience of grief is a normal part of life in a world corrupted by sin and decay. As Christians, we wrestle with the mistaken notion that God will somehow insulate us from the terrible losses common to everyone else. But, Jesus promised that in the world we are going to have tribulation (John 16:33). And so, the harsh reality is that loved ones die, parents and friends divorce, we suffer the trauma of unemployment, we get sick and our children rebel. We may have grown up in a home where alcoholism, physical, sexual and emotional abuse were commonplace. We may have suffered tremendous heartache through the rejection and abandonment of our loved ones.

The good news is that we serve a God Who desires to comfort us in our grief. In fact, we see a beautiful picture of His heart in Isaiah 30:18: “Therefore the Lord LONGS to be gracious to you, and therefore, He waits on high to have compassion on you.” And the Apostle John reminds us in Revelation 21:4 that there is a day coming when the Lord will wipe away every tear from our eyes. There will no longer be any death, mourning, crying or pain. Halleluliah!
We now want to address two very important and relevant questions. First of all, does the Scripture demonstrate that God actually feels what we feel when we are grieving? And secondly, how would God have us to cope with such intense feelings? Thankfully, the Word of God addresses these questions in a most significant way. For example:

Psalm 10:14 - “But You do see! Indeed You note trouble and grief; that You may take it into Your hands; the helpless commit themselves to You; You have been the helper of the orphan.”

Psalm 30:11-12 - “You have turned my mourning into dancing; You have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise You and not be silent.
O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”

Psalm 6:6-9 - “I am weary with my mourning; every night I flood my bed with tears; My eyes waste away because of grief; they grow week because of my foes. Depart from me all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord accepts my prayer.”

Psalm 22:24 - “For He did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; He did not hide His face from me, but heard when I cried to Him.”

Psalm 31:7 - “I will exult and rejoice in Your steadfast love, because You have seen my affliction; You have taken heed of my adversities...”

Psalm 34:18 - “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit.

Psalm 55:17 - “Evening and morning and at noon I will utter my complaint and moan, and He will hear my voice.”

Psalm 56:8-9 - “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your record? ... This I know, that God is for me.”

Isaiah 63:9 - “In all their (i.e. the children of Israel) affliction He was afflicted, And the angel of His presence saved them; In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them; And He lifted them and carried them all the days of old.”

Isaiah 53:4 - “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried...”

Several relevant truths are revealed in these texts that we desperately need to understand believe and apply.

First of all, God does not distance Himself from us in our grief even though it may look that way to us and certainly feels that way to us oftentimes. Christ not only understands our pain because He is all-knowing; but, He also feels our pain because He, being fully human, as well as fully God, had to “become like us in every respect so that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest...” (see Heb. 2:17). That is why in Hebrews 4:15, we are told that we don't have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have One Who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness (lit. in the Greek “without shame, freely speaking”) so that we may receive mercy and find grace (i.e. divine empowerment) to help in time of need. Even though God is able to feel what we feel, unlike us, He can remain totally objective.

Jesus explained in John 16:33 that “in the world you will have tribulation, but take courage for I have overcome the world.” If a servant is not greater than his master (Jn. 15:20), then we should not be surprised to find ourselves hurt, rejected, scorned, misunderstood, abused, abandoned, etc., as was our Savior (read and reflect upon John 1:11; 6:64-65; 16:30-33). Jesus experienced the reality and the accompanying feeling of being abandoned by His own Father with Whom He had shared eternal fellowship, as demonstrated in Mark 15:34, when He cried out in anguish, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

In John 11:33, we find Christ “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” and weeping at the sight of Mary and her friends grieving over the death of Lazarus. Facing His imminent death Jesus declares “now my soul has become troubled”, and again, “He became troubled in spirit” (John 12:27; 13:21). In Mark 14:33-34, we observe that He “began to be very distressed and troubled.” And He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death.” The stark reality of Christ not only bearing our sins, but also our griefs and sorrows, is demonstrated in the garden of Gethsemanae as He sweat great drops of blood.

Secondly, not only does God see, understand, and feel our pain, He invites us to pour out our hearts before Him (Ps. 62:8). Because Christ is “a man of suffering and acquainted with grief” (Is. 53:3), He can accept the full spectrum of emotion that accompanies our grief such as shock, anger, sorrow, alienation, etc. It's not a sin to feel grief and to feel it deeply. The question becomes one of how to handle it.

God would have us be brutally honest with Him about what is going on in the deepest and darkest parts of our souls. This is the reason why so many Christians find so much comfort in the Psalms. The Psalms are God's way of saying “I permit you to feel whatever you feel. Just bring your feelings to Me and we'll talk things over!” We don't have to be intimidated about what we find inside as His spirit of truth brings those feelings to the surface because He promised that He will never leave us or abandon us (Heb. 13:5). In fact, it's only as we get honest that we receive the “bigger perspective” and the divine wisdom on our lives that we so badly need (see Ps. 51:6).

Again, it is not sinful to experience severe pain and anger, but it can become sinful if we choose to deny or minimize its existence or use others as a dumping ground for all our raw emotion. While confessing to others is helpful and oftentimes necessary (see James 5:16) let's remember to talk to God for He is our heavenly Father who cares profoundly about how we feel (see Ps. 55:18; 56:8-9).

Lastly, it is imperative for us to grasp that even in the midst of what feels to be unbearable pain that God's grace is sufficient. Coping with so much emotional upheaval can leave us feeling immobilized and devoid of any internal resources. God's desire is to meet us in our helplessness and to offer the supernatural strength we require in order to take the next step so that we, like Paul, can proclaim “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). He will not give us grace for tomorrow today, but only that which is necessary for the moment (see 2 Cor. 12:9-10, Matt. 6:33).

God doesn't instantaneously take away our grief, although we often wish He would, but He longs that we would take His hand in faith and allow Him to walk with us through it (read Is. 30:18; 43:1-2). Resolving grief requires a process in order to bring a more healthy perspective.

In conclusion, we want to look at Psalm 119:28-30 where we read:

My soul melts away because of grief;
strengthen me according to your word.
Put false ways far from me;
and graciously teach me Your law.
I have chosen the way of faithfulness;
I set Your ordinances before me.

The writer here shares frankly with God his pain while at the same time humbly asking for the strength that only God can provide for him in his brokenness. Notice, too, that he chooses to put his faith in God and His revealed Word. We always have a choice (no one can take that away from us!) as to what we are going to choose to believe at any given moment at any given time.

As we have seen in our study, God never removes Himself from our suffering and in fact is as close as our hearts. He has promised to uphold us, strengthen us, and give us comfort for He is “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3-6). Then we, in turn, can become instruments of His comfort for other fellow strugglers so that they may be encouraged in the faith and that God may receive the glory that He so richly deserves.