Sometimes life comes and we are dealt blows and punches - the Bible says that in this life we will come up against test and trials and tribulation - that might seem controversial to believers - but we need to understand that God is the giver of life and the Bible declares that it is the devil who comes to `steal, kill & destroy.
However – life is not about that - it is not about the tests and the trials - Today and every other day - it is about God’s grace and His love towards us:
Rom 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, "For Your sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep of slaughter." 37 But in all these things we more than conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When we lose a loved one through the process of death - and even more so - when it happens suddenly and totally unexpected – or when something like a divorce, infidelity, betrayal, crime happens to us, there will be certain emotions that we have to face and deal with.
In Matthew we read that we will be comforted when we mourn - not if we mourn - when we mourn - just like the other emotions that we need to face - when dealing with the loss of a loved one - we have to face it and work through it :
I shared this before and I want to share it with you today as well - I believe that these issues are part and parcel of the mourning or the restoration of emotions process - things that we have to deal with in order to find closure on a sad chapter of life. Remember - closure does not mean forgetting or wiping out memories - it just means getting it behind us.
1 Struggle with `why` it happened until you no longer need to know `Why` or until you are satisfied with partial answers. Once you have reached this stage - accept the fact!
2 Anger, guilt, confusion, forgetfulness are common responses. You are not crazy, you are in mourning.
3 Be aware you may feel appropriate anger at the perpetrator/s, at the world, at God, at yourself. It’s OK to express it.
4 You may feel guilty for what you think you did or did not do. Guilt can turn into regret, through forgiveness it can be released.
5 Remember - when grieving - take one moment a day or one day at a time.
6 Remember, the choice of the situation was not yours. No one is the sole influence in another’s life.
It is only when we ask God the appropriate questions and when we face our emotions that He - by His Holy Spirit can answer us and give us peace. The Bible says that there is a time to live and a time to die, a time to laugh and a time to mourn.
Only when Job allowed God to be God - when he finally accepted God’s sovereignty - could God answer and restore him. Allow God in times like these - to take control, after all:
No matter who prefers to differ : GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL.
We should live - determined to become a hundred years old, but also, always ready to move on at any time.
It is not about death and how and where and when, but about how we live today, do we add value to life, do we enhance the relationships we are in or do we take away
Jesus spoke these words to His disciples: in John 14: 1 - 3 we read :
Joh 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, so that where I am, you may be also.
Jesus also declared in Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
Maybe that is the hope and the challenge that we have - that our goal should be - to finish the race in such a way - that when we come to the end we can then occupy the mansion which have been prepared for us.
Fight the good fight of faith - well knowing that in due season we will reap a golden harvest.
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