Hello Friends, I’ve invited you to walk with me through Melany’s story. (see above post) There are many reasons why we can’t get past our pain. For me, I never stopped to think about the why behind my pian. That’s what I want to talk about over the next few post.
It hurts when we hold on too tight.
Loss is inevitable. Family members will die. Our financial status will change. Good health will falter. Yet, these are the things that we value most. When all is well, our emotions are held in tack. When we encounter lost, our world falls apart. We have mistaken God’s blessed gifts for our own possessions. In the book of James we read, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). Gifts from God include our spouse, our children, our home, our health and our finances. They are given to us by our gracious Lord to love and care for and to experience joy and thankfulness. Nevertheless, they belong to God. It easy to accept God’s sovereignty when He blesses us with good things, but it’s hard to trust His hand when bad things happen. Still, God is in it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Loss hurts because we grip the things we cherish tightly in our hand when we should be living open handed before God. (I’m especially gifted at this!) The agony of having someone we love ripped from our life is often so great that we experience an array of emotions. Feelings, such as anger, anxiety, fear, abandonment, sorrow, loneliness, confusion, denial and bitterness all accompany a broken heart. Since God created our emotions, it’s acceptable to grieve. However, the good news is we don’t have to remain in dismay. We can experience joy once again. The way through these emotions is to put things in perspective. While family, job, and health are blessings from God, they should not be the center of our lives. God should. Only when He is the center of our lives through an ongoing relationship can we truly be stable. He is the only thing that is sure and certain in our lives.
How do we let go? Through Trust
I’ve learning not to let my reasoning get in the way of my trust in God. I have to remember that He sees the bigger picture. The sovereign Lord has a higher purpose for allowing hardships to touch my life than I can understand. Another truth I cling to is this. God loves me beyond measure. Anything he allows in my life is done in and through love.
There are many found in the Bible that displayed this kind of trust when their circumstances didn’t make sense. I imagine that it took trust for David. He must have had great faith in God to face a giant named Goliath with only a few pebbles and a slingshot. Daniel must have believed in God’s complete control over man and beast when he entered into the lion’s den. I’m convinced that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego also believed in the trustworthiness of God when they were thrown into the fiery furnace for not bowing down to the king.
Then there is Joseph. Sure David and Daniel, along with many other heroes’ of faith, displayed trust in God when faced with adversity, but to me, Joseph takes the cake. His suffering came from his own flesh and blood. Read his entire story beginning in Genesis chapter 37.
Joseph overcame because he realized God’s hand in even the worst of circumstances. Even after his brothers sold him into slavery, Joseph relied on the Lord’s sovereignty in the situation. He later told his brothers, “Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt” (Genesis 45:5-8).
In other words, what some mean for evil, God means for good.
God is indeed involved in everything. Even in the worst of times, God is still on the throne. We can be encouraged knowing that in every situation God is working on our behalf. Joy replaces sorrow when, like Joseph, we can let go of our past and trust God’s providence in our lives whatever the loss may be.
Questions to ponder:
Do you find it difficult to trust God?
When did you display trust during a critical time of pain?
How did trusting God bring your comfort or peace?
M says
Micca, your post is so real, I had to come back and read it twice. So many people in the church don’t talk about these issues. Some how it doesn’t sound Christian, BUT we are broken people who are not perfect (why we need our Jesus after all). I am looking forward to your next posts. Thank you for your words. As someone who is still learning how to grieve, trust and walk out my faith, I appreciate your honesty.