Grief: October 29, 2010

Today's Word for Friday October 29, 2010

GRIEF

DEFINITION

The cause of sorrow; disaster or failure.

SCRIPTURE

Who comforts us in all our tribulation (grief), that we may be able to comfort those who are in trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. II Corinthians 1:4.

Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better. Ecclesiastes 7:3.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE

One of the most difficult experiences that one faces in life is the death of a family member, a friend or acquaintance. We have experienced this several times in our immediate family losing dearly loved family members including our parents, a daughter-in-law and a nephew. The cause of the sorrow that comes with death is grief. We have experienced that the grief for a person who has died knowing Jesus is entirely different than when the person did not know Jesus.

As a minister we have witnessed, first hand, both situations. When a Christian is grieving for a person who never knew Jesus, the grief includes personal feelings as to whether you did all you could to see that that person knew the Lord and therefore will spend an eternity separated from God. When a believer dies, we as believers have the blessed hope of spending an eternity in heaven with them.

Job tells us in Job 42:5 that out of grief he saw Jesus as never before, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see You." Jesus, the perfect man, is described as "a man of sorrows," intimately acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3)

In first reading the verse above from Ecclesiastes it is hard to understand how the writer could say, "Sorrow is better than laughter." There is a lot for us to learn that sometimes we only learn through grief. The writer of Ecclesiastes teaches us that sorrow does a work in one's heart that will make one a better person in the Lord.

We have traveled to many areas of our world and have seen suffering and grief that has moved us to tears but what we have learned through these many experiences is that God used sorrow and grief to soften our hearts so that we would be more sensitive to the needs of the suffering. It taught us to pray for those living in sorrow and made us aware of a hurting world that Jesus died for. God wants each of us to remember that in times of grief and sorrow He is in control and our comforter and He wants us to be available to comfort others in their time of need as Paul wrote in the above verse from II Corinthians 1:4.

LEARNING

Our memory verse for this week is found in I Thessalonians 5:18.

In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

PRAYER

Help me today to be an encouragement to anyone that is facing grief and sorrow. Give me an opportunity to remind them that when all seems to be lost that they have not lost You. Help me to remember that I can learn more from sorrow than from laughter.