Christians stink at grieving.
I have seen quite clearly over the past few years while watching friends (and even myself) grieve, that Christians' stink at grieving! We have witnessed the grieving of death of children, parents, sisters, brothers, friends, loss of jobs, etc.
For some reason, we like to quickly throw out Romans 8:28 as comfort (which it is), but never truly get down in the "nitty gritty of grief". We use platitudes as comfort, and miss out on incredible opportunities to truly "love people where they are" and not try to fix them with "perfect answers". Why do we not say "this really stinks and I love you"? why do we have to say "God is soveriegn"? As Christians, I beleive we do a disservice to our brothers and sisters in Christ by giving them platitudes. I want nothing more than to hear from my friends in times of grief that "They love me. This stinks. Praying for you. What can I DO for you?"
What does it look like to TRULY love someone in their grief? Is saying: "I am praying and Jesus Loves you" really enough? What if it cost us more to love one another? I think it should. I want to stop my lip service and LIVE OUT the Gospel by DOING LOVE...not just SAYING LOVE.
I have been so convicted of this lately...I want to truly love people as Jesus loved people. He did not only point them to truth, He also gave them water, food, etc. He met their felt needs. The times I have felt the most loved is when people met my felt needs. In those times of love...it always pointed me to the TRUE LOVE: Jesus!
Yes. I was listening to a great Tim Keller sermon recently (I think it was this one) that touched on this. At one point he said that when Jesus was on His way to be crucified, He didn't dismiss His own suffering and say "Yeah, I'm going to the cross, but you know, I'm just praising God!" I love that.
ReplyDeleteYou are amazing!
You are doing a great job at this. Life does just stink sometimes.
ReplyDeleteYou don't know me, but I stumbled across your blog and I just wanted to say how incredibly inspiring your words are. Your faith is amazing and I admire not only it, but your way with words. Thank you for the inspiration and you and your family will be in my prayers.
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