Grief

What is grief from the Christian perspective?  In order to answer that question we must first understand what grief is.

Grief is defined as:

Keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret or a cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow. –Dictionary.com

Grief is an emotion that expresses distress from an affliction or loss.  Grief therefore, can be experienced in various different ways. For believers in Christ, there are some things we have to bear the grief of and there are other things we should not be grievous about.  Therefore, I am not going to tell you that you dear reader should never experience grief in your Christian walk, that would be unrealistic and impractical.  Instead what I hope to achieve through this article is to provide you with some guidance on how to deal with the emotion of grief.  More importantly, I hope to share with you how God deals with grief and how Jesus deals with grief, that hopefully it will shed some light on this topic that all of us can glean some strength from.

How does God deal with Grief?

Many believers, many people are surprised that God can even experience grief. He does and has experienced grief.  Here is a scripture when God became grievous of His creation of mankind:

“And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”-Genesis 6:6

What does this mean? It means that God was very distressed about losing mankind to the ways of sin and disobedience.  It does not mean he was angry.  Here we see the word “repented” used with the emotions of the Lord.  The word “repented” in this verse, as it applies to God, our creator, does not mean that God made an error and was upset about it.  It means that God changed his mind about how he created mankind and He decided to judge the entire human race at that point of time. Before he executed His judgment upon all mankind, He searched and found one righteous and peace-loving man, who did not use violence to justify the ends of his means in life. That man was Noah, and God saved him and his family as He cleansed and restarted the world via the great deluge, the flood. He did so because Mankind had gotten so out of control with vengeance killing and the Sons of God (the line of Shem) committing unholy marriages with the daughters of men (of the line Cain, the murderer of his brother Abel) [Read Genesis 5 and 6].  Before the earth became consumed with violence and unholy marital relations, He wiped out all but 8 souls from that generation.

So how does this tell us how God deals with grief?  It tells us that when God is grieved enough he options to find one man and through him save the human race and the planet.  Before you begin to believe that all those souls are eternally lost or have the become evil spirits that now plague mankind, believe me the Bible does not teach any such thing about them.  What the Bible does teach is that Jesus, after his death and during his burial in the earth, during those 3 days and 3 nights, went down to Sheol, the holding place of the condemned and preached to them redemption (1 Peter 3:19, 4:6; Matthew 27:52+53). Those souls of the spirits of men, who anticipated the redemption of God accepted Jesus and rose from the dead and entered into the heavenly Jerusalem and many in Jerusalem saw it.  Those people who rose from those graves, were the ones who never heard Jesus preach on the earth they died before Jesus was born, they all heard the message of redemption in Sheol,  many believed and received salvation, then the arose from the dead before Jesus did and went on before him into the New Jerusalem which appeared in Heaven. I therefore, submit to you that all the saints of the former dispensations who knew of the forth coming of God’s redemption for them, through Christ, was of those who accepted the message and rose from the dead.  

So how does God deal with grief? He takes corrective action to relieve Himself of the loss he has experienced.  What did God lose?  He lost the cream of his creation, the apple of his eye, the love of his life, His companions, His friends, He lost the many souls of Mankind to sin, disobedience and death.  How did he choose to relieve himself of such a loss? The Apostle John tells us how:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”-John 3:16

For the members of Mankind were not able to save themselves as a whole, entrapped by the sinful nature and the spirit of disobedience through the fear of (Hebrews 2:14+15) death and were on the path to eternal condemnation, that He sent Jesus, his only begotten Son, his image, born of a virgin, pure and without sin to become the sacrificial lamb for the sin of the world.  This illustrates that to overcome grief, God chose to love us and redeem us all, even those who died in the flood and those yet unborn.  Showing that what the Apostle Peter wrote about the Lord and his promises is true.

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”- 2 Peter 3:9

For those who were asleep before the Lord Jesus appeared on the earth, believed in hope of redemption promised by God and because of that faith in that hope, God through Christ, raised them up redeemed.  Giving all of us hope that are suffering grief that whatsoever God has promised he will accomplish.   All we have to do is keep believing in his promises.

How does Jesus deal with Grief?

Jesus being fully man, experienced grief during his ministry. Here are some scriptures illustrating when Jesus experienced grief and how he dealt with it.

Mark 3:1-6 [vs 5]-The Healing of the Man with the withered Hand on the Sabath

“And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.”

The passage we just read shows Jesus was grieved and angry, that  He experienced two separate emotions at the same time.  He was angry because of their silence, their lack of response to his question.  According to the Pharisees interpretation of the Law, if a cow or a lamb fell into a pit on the sabbath day, they couldn’t pull the cow or lamb out until the sabbath had passed.  However, the Pharisees overlooked this and allowed people to pull their livestock out of a pit on the Sabbath day because the livestock would be offered to them for atonement for breaking the Law.  What Jesus was saying since the religious leaders allowed the livestock to be saved on the Sabbath day, how much more should healing a man’s withered hand be allowed to be done on the sabbath day?  Isn’t a man of more value than livestock?  When the people did not respond to Jesus’ question he was angry that they would allow a man to suffer on the Sabbath day in comparison to saving their own livestock on the Sabbath from danger.  He was grieved because they were lost in their unbelief.  Remember this act was done inside of a synagogue, a place where the Pharisees have taught the people that Jesus was a law breaker because he performed miracles on the Sabbath day and among other things.  Jesus was angry because they did not respond. He was grieved because the people of the synagogue did not believe.  Now the man with the withered hand believed and did as Jesus bid him and he was healed as a result.

This shows that Jesus grieves when there is no faith in the people in his acts to heal and deliver.  It is because that they are lost without having faith in Christ. So how does Jesus deal with grief?  He finds one with faith in his ability to heal and performs a miracle.  Miracles can make unbelievers into believers all by one witnessed act. Yet it takes faith in Jesus to make miracles happen.  He performs miracles right in front of unbelievers in the hopes to turn them into believers.

Luke 7:11-17 The revival to life of a widow’s dead son.

And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people. Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother. And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people.

In this passage of scripture we find Jesus dealing with the grieve of a widow who lost her only son.  The economic impact of such a lost upon the widow was such that she would not be able to provide a living for herself.  Let me clarify,  back then women were provided and protected by the men in their families.  When a wife loses her husband due to death, she becomes a widow. The Law stipulates that if a woman becomes a widow, must have her eldest Son take care of her.  In this case the man that was being carried out of the city dead was her only son. She had no other relatives, herself being a widow she had no one to provide for her.  The woman was grieving over the lost of her son because there was no provision in the law for her care, unless a kinsman marries her.  I repeat, the story does not tell us if there were surviving relatives, but she was weeping concerning her loss. This story does not lend to us the extent of her plight, but her weeping tells us that see was not a young widow because her son was not a boy, but a full grown man. Who would desire, to care for an old woman with no surviving relatives?   What did Jesus do? Jesus stopped the procession, comforted the widow in her grief, and raised her son back to life.  Jesus restored her provision to her, he returned her son to her, she did not need to worry about being cared for anymore and see had her son back

So how does Jesus deal with grief? If there is faith present he performs miracles and restores hope to the hopeless.  This teaches us that we must retain hope when suffer loss.

I remember when I lost my job, my family, my first wife, my car and my home all in single year.  I suffered grief for many days. Grief is very painful emotion, It can drive a man to do harmful and destructive things if not handled properly and kept in perspective. Yet it is good for a man to grieve,  For It makes a man appreciate what he once had, that which may have taken for granted.  It can make a man reset his values and bring his life into perspective.  Sometimes grief is experienced everyday a man remembers his loss. Sometimes it goes away, being something or someone he does not grieve over anymore, for whichever which way a man deals with his grief he must confront it with hope and purpose.  Hope of a better tomorrow, hope of a better life.  In my despair, in my grief over losing all that I held dear and to an extent still do, I found hope.  I simply told God through Christ,”…If you are real you will raise me up out of this place. I have faith that you are God and nothing is impossible to you, if I believe. Here is where the rubber meets the road, either you’re God or you are not God. If you are not God I will remain homeless and I will not live for you anymore, but if you prove that you are God I will continue to live for you and your glory…”  Well, long story short, God did raise me out of homelessness.  I now have a new wife, a new family, a new home and a new job and now I am serving God in whatsoever capacity I can.  I will preach his Gospel, I will teach his people and I will glorify his name forever.  Do I still grieve over that which I have lost? I would be lying if I said that I didn’t grieve each and every day, because sometimes pain of loss does not go away, but I meet it with hope and the promise that one day everything will change and I believe that God can make that happen, through Christ.  I learned that I cannot go on living grieving about what was.  I can make a new life with God’s help, and with his help I did. So that one day  when I draw my last breath of life, my family , both past and present, can look at my life and say that I was good man, that I was a real Christian.

The Power of Praise, The Power of Joy

Grief can not only be overcome with hope and purpose, it can be subdued by finding new joys. The power of praise should also not be underestimated for the bible states:

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.-Isaiah 61-3

This scripture shows what God provides when we are grieving, we mourn when we grieve, but God provide us with these things: Beauty, Joy and the Garment of Praise. It is amazing that your really don’t see the beauty of life until you suffer some sort of loss.  When I saw the beautiful life I had before I became homeless, I thanked God, not for the loss, but rather for the opportunity of enjoying the life he had given me and repented from not appreciating it more. I take nothing for granted today because I experienced the loss, it has made me a better person. I did not allow my grief to cause me to do harmful things in the name of vengeance.  In my loss, I learned the true power of forgiveness and the freedom it gave to my soul and I praise God for it. When grief is properly dealt with, a believer in Christ, matures, he grows up and is taken to another level in his relationship with God.  I began to thank God for the little things, before long I was praising him for the great things he has done in my life.  So whenever I feel the pain of grief, I remember those things He has done for me and I praise him the more. 

The moral of this lesson is you do not have to stay in a grievous condition, which left unchecked can lead you into doing very harmful and vengeful things.  Things you will regret doing.  Or even prevent having the things that have been causing you grief, give you pain all your life.  Once you tap into the hope and purpose of your life and couple that with gratefulness and praise, you can experience new joys and joy can subdue your grief. Follow it up with the power of forgiveness and you can live again. 

You also can experience the joy of life everlasting with God. How? You can choose to accept the free gift of salvation provided by a loving God through the shed blood of Jesus. How?  Just recite the following prayer with all your heart:

Dear heavenly Father,

In Jesus’ name, I come to you now as a repentant sinner.  I confess all of my sinfulness to you and ask you to forgive all of my sins for Jesus’ sake. Wash away all of my sins by the blood of your Son Jesus.  For I now believe that Jesus died for my sins according to your Holy Word, the Bible and that he was raised from the death according to the Bible.  I now invite your Holy Spirit to come and live inside of me and make me your child. I promise to strive to live holy everyday with the Help of your Holy Spirit and by studying the Bible every day. I thank you Lord for saving me.

If you have recited the above prayer with all sincerity, I welcome you the Family of God! Right now the Angels of heaven are rejoicing because you have repented and believed in the hope of all men’s salvation.  Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.

The next thing you need to do is find a bible believing church, so that you can grow up in Christ and in God. To become what God designed you to be.  Isn’t that exciting!?!