Is our faith ready for seasons of sorrow?
Last week, my heart was broken to tears and my faith was challenged by a testimony from Tim and Aileen Challies in Toronto. They shared with remarkable composure how God sustained them with his grace through the sudden death of their son, Nick, at 20 years old just four years ago.
They pointed to their faith in God’s sovereignty as the anchor that allowed them to weather the storm holding on to one another. Such tragedy often causes divorce and deep bitterness. We taught our children about this word “sovereignty” in Sunday School recently. God’s sovereignty means that He is always powerful, wise, and good. Those three. He does all He wants because he is all powerful. He does what is right because He is all wise, not missing a detail. And He does what is good for me as I am his child. Always.
Is my faith in His sovereignty strong enough to sustain me and my wife through such a great loss? Could we love Him more and hold on to each other if we suddenly lost one of our three precious children? I am crying now to think of it!
My next thought is this: Am I pastoring the people of Christ Community Church so well that they would have the theological structure to support them when everything crumbles? Some of you have gone through and are going through deep sorrows with great grace. Are we pointing each other to know God now so that we will never foolishly accuse God of evil? Will we be sustained to not doubt his goodness to us and his power and wisdom to do all things well even when our hearts are being ripped out of our bodies?
With this on my heart I want to recommend three things to you:
#1. Read the Psalms (and all of the Bible really) and look for promises of God’s hesed, Hebrew for his goodness, his loving kindness directed toward you, his determination to good for you. Especially when you are confused about why He is doing what He is doing in your life. I read this Psalm today and it filled me afresh with faith:
Psalm 35:27 Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, “Great is the LORD who delights in the welfare (shalom) of his servant!”
God delights in my welfare, my complete shalom. In his sovereignty He knows that I need to go through seasons of sorrow to know HIS peace, his shalom. Everything He does is for my shalom. Do you think that God works on a reward system with you doing evil to you when you sin and doing good to you when you are good? No. The cross and resurrection guarantees that he will work all things together for our good not based on our righteousness but on that of Christ.
#2. Share your sorrows and how God’s grace is sustaining you OR how you need His grace. Our Gospel Communities (GC’s as we call them) should be a safe place for this. If this is not happening regularly then we are failing in that way. We must point one another to God’s sovereign care for us. To do that we have to open up and be vulnerable about our losses and our fears. Sometimes a group that size is hard to do that in about the most sensitive of matters. You may need to seek out one person to share with. But share. Open your heart in community. This is the why He has given us the body of Christ on earth, the church.
#3. Read Seasons of Sorrow by Tim Challies. I am buying a few to have on hand at church. You can also find it on Amazon. He wrote the book to help people going through their own seasons of sorrow. I think this book can help us be prepared and to support each other when the depths of sorrow wash over us.