The Blessing Of Good Grief Series

We have often described this one thing as affliction, anguish and agony. Some have considered it the successor of trouble while others consider it the predecessor of moral collapse, failure, disintegration and decay. To be sure, some have overcome insurmountable odds and have come out triumphant as a result of it while yet others have driven over a cliff because it took an emotional toll on their life. And while the world of psychology has given its analytical spin and perspective on how it works and what it is, those of us in the room often call it “sorrow”. Interestingly, Webster defines sorrow as ‘…distress that is caused by loss, affliction and disappointment.’ Moreover, it is grief and sadness that causes one to mourn through tears, pain, discouragement and despair. Whatever else it is, I believe that life has a way of giving us the blues. As a matter of fact, I would suggest to you that all of us (exempting none of us) are looking for something that would beat the blues and remedy the sorrow of this life. I go so far as to suggest that perhaps someone looking at me right now, you came in the room today looking for some kind of supernatural anecdote that would overpower and overwhelm the blues and sadness that this life has a tendency to manufacture and produce.

And at the onset, let us all admit and agree that we live in a world of sin and sadness and sickness and suffering and sorrow and sobbing. It appears as if every time you find a peaceful place in life, it seems as if the world says to you like my Daddy used to say when he’d come home and catch me in his favorite, he’d say, “Son, don’t get comfortable there.” He would say, “Don’t make your home in my seat.” And I don’t know how it seems to you but to me it seems like every time you find a comfortable place in life that sorrow of sort seems to say, “Don’t get comfortable there. You won’t be here very long, so don’t make your home here.” As a matter of fact, someone has realistically said, and I agree, that ‘if it ain’t one thing, it’s another.”

This brings to mind Psalm 55 where David recites the depth of pain that the heart knows and experiences as a consequence of the sorrows and suffering of life as a result of sin and human depravity. And after David records what he was going through in Psalm 55:6-8, he responds to the sorrow of his life by saying “Oh, that I had wings like a dove. I would fly away and be at rest. Behold, I would wander far away and I would make my lodging in the wilderness and I would hasten to my place of refuge from the storm and tempest.” David, in essence, was experiencing sorrow in his life and he simply says, “I want out of here”. And that is a profound and significant statement for David to record, for he echoes and articulates the inner cry of every one of us at some place or another when we face discouragement, tragedy, happenstance, misfortune and disappointment. For, in a real sense, it is a cry for life on wings! It is an expression of desire to leave this place of disposition and sorrow. Today it’s as if we’ve made a backwards beatitude that says, ‘Blessed are they who avoid the reality of sin and sorrow, for they are the ones who find the true path of comfort.’ And therefore we think we can find comfort by ignoring our sin and our suffering. But that flies in the face of the kingdom principle and truth that Christ teaches here when He stands on the mountain and says, in essence, ‘Congratulations to the Mourner!’ Not to those who avoid sorrow and sin, but to those who acknowledge the reality of sorrow and sin, and they mourn.

Mark it down – avoiding the reality of sin, suffering and sorrow just doesn’t work. As a matter of fact, neither does ignoring it turn sorrow into comfort. Can I tell you what it will do? It will turn your life into a rat race. It will turn your job into a pain. It will turn your home into a hell house. It will turn your ‘Little House on the Prairie’ into ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street.’ It will turn your days into torment. It will turn your relationships into a mess. It will turn your religion into a bore. And it will turn the church into a social club that simply entertains people who are on their way to hell. Evading and avoiding it just doesn’t work. And our Lord says that the blessing will not come by avoiding sorrow and sin, but it comes through the blessing of a Godly grief that beats the blues. He says, ‘Bravo’ to they that mourn.