Grief and God's Will (Part II)

So I got some positive feedback from the first “Grief and God’s Will” and I do have more to add, so why not do a part II?

When it comes to grief, it is important to know that your life is not over because the person you loved is gone. It’s easy to stop believing in the promises of God because the one thing that you wanted so badly did not happen. However, in the mist of this trial sometimes the only thing you can do is hold onto that faith even if it is weak and unsure just keep holding on because God certainly has a plan. Thankfully, for me the little faith that I has was enough to carry me through and sustained me even when I didn’t know what was going on or why this happened. It is easy to believe I didn’t pray enough, or my faith wasn’t strong because this ended up happening, but as I prayed for healing I didn’t realize at the time that my prayer was answered because my grandpa received the greatest healing there possibly could be and that is being fully restored with Jesus. A good thing to know as well is that God didn’t want death. Death came with the fall of man. He gave man one simple instruction and that was to not eat from the forbidden tree and he said “….eat of it and you shall surely die. (Genesis 2:17)”. It makes sense then when it says in Romans 6:23, “for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God wanted us to live in harmony with him forever and not experience death. So now that sin is in the world then the notion of death is inevitable and something that I discovered was that death is the end of sin for a believer, because once you are dead you are perfectly sanctified in Christ Jesus. Now because we are alive, well, we have to deal with the consequences of sin whether it is our fault or Eve’s, (but honestly, we would have done the same thing as her) but God is still so good. What God does during these times is so beautiful. If we trust in the Lord even when things are not going well, he can refine us and create a masterpiece with our broken pieces. I like to think of a diamond, because they are only created with a lot of pressure and in a way the more pressure that is added the more beautiful the final look will be. Instead of your faith being weakened, you may come out of it stronger.

Going off of what happened with me, I felt like God’s timing was perfect because before this loss, I was struggling so badly with my sin, and let me clarify, no this did not happen because I sinned, but God allowed the situation to align with my struggle and to get me out of my sin. I remember how lost I was and how badly I wanted to do what was wrong and left me feeling dead inside and didn’t satisfy. However, God is so compassionate that when we sin he brings us back over and over again. He uses situations to heal us and heal our souls and death is not off the table for this process because he uses that to. He uses everything. The goal is to be more like Jesus and life is basically just to glorify him and get others to come to him because the only thing that we can take from this life is people.

When something is wrong in our lives he will fix it through his power and all we have to do it trust. The weight of sin is ugly, but freedom taste so good no matter what it took to get there. I know that this is an odd message because it doesn’t make sense according to common knowledge, but we serve a God who is faithful in all situations even in something as terrible as death. God says in John 16:33 that in this life we will go through trials and tribulations, but to take heart because he has overcome the world. We take temporary residence in this world we have the choice of whether we want to live the life that God wants us to live or not. I could have turned from him in a time that I felt like he didn’t do what I wanted, but I decided to lean on his promise that he has a good plan for me and this is just my testimony in saying, yes he worked all things for my good and it did not shake my faith but increase it. Yes I had doubts and may continue to have doubts, but my shaky yes is enough for him to work through me and I continue to still hold onto his promises because he has never failed me yet.

Prayer

Lord help us see that in the mist of pain that the direction we should turn to is to you and not away from you. Help us trust in you in the dark, when we don't know what's going on and feel as if you have forsaken us, Help us see that this life is not our own and that you promise so much good to those who love you and are called according to your will and purpose. Help us see things in the heavenly realm and not rely on the natural and what we see because it will always deceive us if we are not careful. Lord Jesus we love you and bless your name, amen.