Overcoming Grief
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Introduction
Have you ever had the wind knocked out of you? Maybe you were playing football and you got hit so hard that you couldn’t breathe for several seconds. I remember one of the first times this ever happened to me. I was on the playground at school and I tripped and fell and because of the way I landed I immediately could not breathe. I remember while freaking out, I got up and ran to my mom who was a teacher. Thankfully by the time I got to her I could breathe again. I’m sure all of us in here have experienced that feeling.
But for some of us in here we have been caught off guard when our very breathe was taken from us. It was a normal day everything seemed to be going as planned. God had blessed you richly with a great family, friends and health. Things were going great at school or work. The future looked bright. Everyone of your friends respected you and more so God respected you because you were faithfully following him.
But then out of nowhere something occurred in your life that took your breath away. You were no longer able to breathe or think straight. Your perfect world was turned upside down because of one of the meanest words in our language, tragedy. You received news of a great tragedy in your life that took the wind right out of you. And the reason you are unable to breathe is because a great since of grief has overcame you.
Some of you teens and adults unfortunately are O so familiar with this scenario. You know the feeling. For those that have not experienced it unfortunately if you live long enough you will.
Grief is the natural response to any loss. It is nature’s way of healing a broken heart. Doug Manning, someone who has dedicated his life to ministering to people in their time of grief, explains that grief is a lifelong process that is like peeling an onion. It comes off one layer at a time and you cry a lot.
Grief is something that we must all experience throughout our lives. It is nothing new. Tragedy and grief have been with us since the beginning. The very first couple experienced great tragedy and grief when they were expelled from the garden and then shortly after they had to grieve the loss of their son. All throughout the Bible men and women of God had to learn to overcome grief. Even Christ was overcome with grief at the loss of his dear friend Lazarus. The shortest verse in all the Bible, John 11:35 is one of the most powerful, Jesus Wept. It’s powerful because we see that Christ cares for others in their time of sorrow and He has deep compassion for our wounds because he feels those wounds with us. Jesus wept and Jesus weeps today.
This year’s theme for the area wides is overcome. Tonight I want to briefly touch on two things. First how can one overcome grief and secondly how can we help others overcome grief.
Overcoming Grief
When we think of grief in the Bible many of us immediately think of Job. Man did Job ever have the wind knocked right out of him. In the first chapter of Job we see that he had everything going for him. Verse one says that he was blameless, upright; he feared God and resisted evil. Because of his faithfulness God had blessed him with a loving family, and many earthly riches. Job was the greatest of all the people in the East, verse 3.
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.
He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.
And then just like that Job’s life was turned upside down. Job lost his kids, servants and livestock, I bet Job could hardly breathe but on top of all this while grieving his health was targeted.
How can a upright and blameless man go from having everything to having nothing and still remain faithful. How did Job overcome his grief? More so how can we as Christians overcome our grief.
The first step that we must take in overcoming grief is to, like Job, understand that it is natural and ok to express our feelings, hurts and questions to the one who cares the most. John Mark Hicks in his book Surrendering hope says this “Lament honestly. Tell God how you feel. If you have doubts or complaints, express them. Even if you don’t think God is listening or believe God isn’t there, speak the pain. It is a form of spiritual therapy, a kind of spiritual venting.
Job was not afraid to tell God exactly how he felt. Job was frustrated, angry and hurt. Of all the conversations that he had with God the one found in Job 16 is probably the harshest. Listen to Job’s frustration. Job 16:7-9; 12-13; 16-17. Can you feel his frustration and pain?
My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness, although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
I was at ease, and he broke me apart; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he set me up as his target; his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare; he pours out my gall on the ground.
Surely now God has worn me out; he has made desolate all my company. And he has shriveled me up, which is a witness against me, and my leanness has risen up against me; it testifies to my face. He has torn me in his wrath and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
In the collection of Psalms there are another great example of expressing our grief with our God. Listen to David express his feeling to God in Psalm 13. The key in this example and with Job is to always remember to never end were you begin. It is okay to begin by asking God why and sharing your frustrations with Him but it must never be the end of the matter. Just like Job and David we must always be able, in the end to recognize that though tragedy has struck, God is faithful and all loving and will never leave or forsake us through our grief journey.
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
In Job chapters 38-41 we see that God does answer the questions and concerns that he had. Jobs final response to God shows us ultimately were his trust and were are trust should lie. Job 42:2-5
“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;
As Christians if we are able to approach God with trust in Him, honesty and openness as Job has done, even if honesty means sometimes or often crying out in anger and frustration than we can at this point begin moving in the right direction, in overcoming our grief.
Second Step
Now, in order to move in the right direction we must make sure that we are going in the right direction. We must make sure that we are running towards God not away from him. I understand that at times all we want to do is be alone and by ourselves. This is normal. It’s ok to get away for a while from things that trigger difficult memories. But always leave room for God.
If you are able to leave room for God than He will be able to tell you just like he told Elijah in 1 Kings 19, I am still here. I am still in charge. You are not alone. Psalm 34:18 says, The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Paul echoes similar word in 2 Cor. 1:3-4 praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
When I think of someone who ran in the wrong direction from God, I think of Jonah. What God asked Jonah to do was painful, illogical and way outside his comfort zone. What God asked of Jonah challenged his understanding of God.
Just like Jonah often times during extreme grief we to question God. We question whether or not he truly understands what we are going through so our instinct is to run from him. And by doing so we become like the prodigal son.
But thankfully if you are currently or later in life find yourself in this situation like the prodigal you can turn around and run home. But you want to know something even greater? Our God is a runner to. I love the image of God found in Luke 15:20. “While he (that’s you and I) was still a long way off, his father (our father, God) saw him and was filled with compassion for him; (what did he do?) he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” Aren’t you glad that God runs too?
And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
So, so far we have seen that we must understand that grief is normal and that it is OK to communicate how we feel to our God. Second we must make sure that we are going in the right direction toward God. And then third we must make sure that we focus on our God who heals rather than our pain.
Paula Harrington a lady who has been through much grief in her life said it best, listen to her words. “I’ve learned along the way that if I can focus on the God who rescues me instead of the life that hurts me, I can survive. Wow!
If we are able to focus on the God who rescues us instead of the life that hurts us than we can survive.
Job understood this well. Of all the things that he went through he never lost his focus. Notice what Job did immediately after hearing about all that he had loss. Job 1:20-21 Job through it all focused on the God who eventually did rescue him from his grief.
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Our God not only rescued Job but he came to this earth to rescue us from this life that hurts us. Jesus makes this very clear in his home town of Nazareth when he states the reason for his coming from the book of Isiah. Luke 4:18-19 says.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Did you catch that? Jesus came to this earth to rescue us and heal our broken hearts.
As stated in the beginning the title for this lesson is over coming grief. I have to admit that I agree with this statement but I also disagree.
I disagree in that fact that I am not sure that it is ever possible to completely overcome grief to the point that we no longer grieve a loss or hurt that we have experienced. For those that have lost a loved one you will never stop loving them and wishing that they were still here with you. So in that since you will always love them and grieve that fact that they are no longer here.
But what I do believe is that we as Christians can overcome grief to the point that we don’t allow our grief to overtake us. That is what we must strive for. That is why we need the help of our father in heaven.
Yes early on in the grief process our grief has a way of overtaking us. It is all we think about. It is why we can’t breathe at times. It’s why we ask God why.
But as Christians we can overcome grief by not letting it control us by first communicating our grief to our father second by making sure that we our going in the right direction toward God and third by focusing on our father who wants to rescue us rather than focusing on our grief that hurts us.
Helping others overcome grief
Secondly this evening I want to briefly talk about how we as Christians can help others overcome grief. What can we say or do to help our friends and family who are grieving.
To help us answer this question let’s look at how Job’s three friends tried to help him and see what we can learn.
In Job 2:11-13 Jobs friends begin by doing exactly what most people who are grieving need and want. They are simply present.
Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.
The first rule for a comforter is, be there and be silent. Often times we think that we must know exactly what to say to make everything better but in reality it is better for us to just be silent. Comfort in times of great sorrow comes more in the form of presence than words.
Just ask anybody who has experienced a great tragedy. They more than likely don’t remember anything helpful that people said but what they do remember who was there.
Unfortunately this is the only good thing that Jobs friends did for him. In chapter three Job begins to pour out his feelings of anguish and despair and rather than allowing Job to lament his friends attempt to explain his loss to him. In chapters 4,8,11,15,18,20,22, and 25 one by one Job’s friends try to explain to him why these horrible things happened to him.
Unfortunately often time we can do more harm while trying to do good, just like Job’s friends.
In order to help rather than hurt we must be willing to listen and allow our friends to lament. Give them space to speak, give them permission to lament. Don’t ever try to stop them from sharing their feelings. Don’t try to change the topic away from their grief.
When we do this we only signal to them that we are neither willing to listen nor willing to share their pain. When we change the subject, we marginalize their pain and dismiss their hurt.
The worst and most offensive thing to a sufferer is for someone to come with all the answers to their problems. Please, please never tell someone who is grieving how they should feel or tell them that you understand what they are going through. Believe me you have no idea. We have no idea because everybody’s grief is different. Everybody grieves differently.
Never try to make sense of their suffering like Job’s friends did. Never say things like “it will turn out for the best or God is trying to teach you something or it could be worse or its going to be alright or God has a plan or I know exactly how you feel. Trust me when I say you don’t know, you don’t understand and by saying these, what seem to be helpful phrases we instead bring about more hurt.
Also in most cases scripture is good but there are some scriptures that are extremely hurtful in the moment. Do ever Quote Rom 8:28 and tell them that all things work together for Good. Or James 1:2-4 Count it all joy. Really you expect me to find joy in my time of grief. 1 Cor. 10:13 God will not allow us to be tempted more than we can handle. Really, I don’t know how much more I can take.
There are a time and a place for these scriptures to be addressed and when they are addressed in their full context than can be helpful. But please never share these passages with someone who has just experienced a great tragedy.
So how can we help our friends overcome their grief? First, be there and be silent. Listen and allow our friends to lament. And third don’t come with all the answers.
The best piece of advice that I can leave you with when it comes to helping others in their grief journey are three simple words from a man named Doug Manning. Hug, Hang around and most importantly Hush! If you want to help remember the three H’s. Hug, Hang around and Hush.
Conclusion
Tonight if you are currently struggling with grief please know that the God of all comfort want to rescue you from your hurt.
As Christians we can overcome our grief if we communicate our grief with our God, if we make sure that we are seeking him and if we trust that he wants to rescue us from our hurt.
If you are not a Christian God wants to help you overcome your grief too. As mentioned earlier Jesus came to this earth and died for everyone so that he can heal the broken hearted.
Jesus died so we wouldn’t have to. Yes we will all die physically but we will never die spiritually if we are willing to obey our Lord by repenting of our sins and being Baptized.
For those that obey Christ and remain faithful to him, we will be able to completely overcome our grief when the Lord wipes away every tear from our eye.
What a wonderful day that will be.