We have all been faced with loss. Whether the loss of loved ones, the loss of a favorite possession, the loss of reputation, or any number of other types of loss. It is a difficult lemon to deal with as loss often causes us to experience the bitterness of the situation quickly, before we have a chance to add sugar and make the lemonade.
Having talked with several parents who have lost children through the years, adult children and young children, I am told it is about the worst form of loss a person can experience. Why does it hurt so bad? Because it is unnatural, it is unexpected, it is the loss of not only something close to you, but a piece of you. These are reasons that make any loss hard to bear. The loss of anything seems unnatural to us, we have an expectation of accumulating things, not of losing the things and relationships we have. We struggle with understanding why such difficulty should visit us.
I'm guessing that you have already figured out where in the Bible we will find the answer to this lemon as Job suffered loss as greatly as any person in the Bible. So the tough part is to figure out what made Job's response a good one, and what principles can we take with us to apply to the losses that come in our lives.
The first key I think we can learn from Job is that it is OK to grieve. It is not wrong to sorrow. It is not sinful to express sadness. I get why we shy away from it. It makes me uncomfortable to be around someone who is sobbing uncontrollably. Because of that, I feel uncomfortable crying in front of someone else. If we were honest, we would probably say that we would rather that no one cried. Sometimes that feeling makes us feel like it would be wrong to sorrow. But the Bible tells us that Job tore his clothes, shaved his head and fell to the ground. He was sad. He showed his sorrow; he announced it to anyone around him that he grieved the loss of his children, animals and servants greatly. And after talking of this grieving that Job was doing, the Bible tells us that in all this Job did not sin. For us it is important to remember to allow yourself room to grieve, to allow those who have experienced loss time to grieve. Don't try to make yourself stop feeling the loss, don't tell someone else when they should stop feeling sad.
There is a key to what grief is good and what grief isn't. It's OK to grieve, as long as you still believe. In the New Testament, it talks about grieving, but not as those who have no hope. Christians are to be about hopeful grieving. In Job, it tells us in his grief he fell down and worshipped. Our belief needs to be that God is still on His throne. That God is to be exalted in all of our life's circumstances. That God i good and He cares for us. Job could do this because he did not expect to only be blessed by God.
"What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips." - Job 2:10b
Because he didn't expect only blessing, he could worship God in the trials. He expected God to be good, but not everything that happened in life to be good. Paul talks about that in the New Testament as well:
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose."
- Romans 8:28
Job knew that. Job kept God on his throne and understood that God had things under control. It did not lessen the pain of his loss, but it helped him see past his loss to look for what God was doing through it. To seek God's exaltation, even in the midst of his humiliation.
What do we do with loss? We remember that it is OK to grieve, as long as we still believe.
I hope you don't need this lesson any time soon personally or to help a friend, but I hope we can all respond to the losses that will come with the wisdom of Job. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"
Keep looking up!
If you would like to hear the sermon behind this post, you can listen in for the next month over here.
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