In the last posting, I stated that "sorrow is not the resting place for our souls". Where is "sorrow"? Sorrow is the place where we find tears, heartache, despair, discouragement, regret, disappointment, depression, grief and loss. The place of sorrow is a normal place to find ourselves from time to time during our lives. We cannot avoid going there but God never intended us to make that our dwelling place. In fact, I believe that the place of sorrow is a healthy place to visit. It is there that we can openly deal with the reason that we found ourselves in sorrow. We, as humans, have natural emotions that God gave us. These include the ability to emotionally experience pain and loss. To feel sad and to feel happy are necessary parts of our nature. It is not wrong to feel sorrow, the Bible tells us that Jesus would experience sorrow and grief.
Isa 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Jesus wept and felt great pain at times. He also must have felt great joy at other times. I cannot help but believe that there had to be tears of joy on His cheeks when He saw the excitement in the parents eyes after He raised their daughter from the dead. Or, what must He have felt when the blind saw, the sick were healed, the lost were saved, when His feet were being washed with tears and wiped with hair, and when He witnessed a heart that was opened to receive the truth?
No one can tell another how and when they should grieve or when the grieving should be over. We are each different and each have individual ways of dealing with the various aspects of sorrow. But, I am convinced that God would have us leave the place of sorrow and come back into the light and experience the joy of living life to the fullest, again. In some cases, the cause of the sorrow will always be with us, as in the loss of a loved one. We will always feel a measure of pain and loss, but we can also, at the same time, make sure the sorrow does not define the rest of our lives. Sorrow is not to be the resting place for our souls. Our souls are to focus on God, His blessings, His love, and His desire for our lives.
After the appropriate period for sackcloth and ashes, we are to get up, as Job did, and praise the God who made us. None of us have suffered more personal loss than Job. He refused to curse God, but instead, maintained his focus on God and he went on to be blessed, again.
Find your dwelling place on the Rock that gives you an unobstructed view of the love of God. There you will dwell in peace and be able to experience joy once more.
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I think at those points we come to a very real reality of who we are, what we truely believe and if our theology and thinking really lines up with our actions and living.
ReplyDeleteThose times make us ask the hard questions and search for the answers!
They very rarely are 'fun', but they can always be 'good' if we allow them to be.
One of my favorite stories is of the eagle. How in the midst of a storm when all other animals flee and run for cover the eagle goes up to the highest cliff/point that he can find. He turns and faces the storm and perches on the edge of the cliff. He then spreads his wings and waits. He waits and waits for the storm to come in and when it does...he uses the storm to sore higher and higher. Higher than he normally could without it! He just chose to use the storm instead of run from it!
Beauty from ashes!