Inside Out: A 40 Day Journey to Transforming Your HeartSample

Sorrowful Heart --> Glad Heart

Waves of grief come and go when there is a significant loss in our lives. Whether it’s losing a career, our health, or a loved one, grief washes over us, consuming us with sorrow and anguish. Grief is how we internalize the experience of loss. It can feel as if we are drowning, unable to take a deep breath because the pain is so weighty on our hearts. The depth of emotional distress from fear, loneliness, despair, yearning, anxiety, and emptiness creates a powerful vacuum that seems to suck the joy and hope out of our lives.  

Mourning is how we outwardly express our grief. It is healthy to mourn. People in the Bible knew how to mourn well. When family members died, they would take the time to slow down, feel the pain, remember the person, and sit in it. They would allow their grief to be expressed physically by tearing their clothes. The loss of a person we love is real. It’s deep. And it will happen to every one of us at some point in our lives.  Ecclesiastes 7:2-3 says that, “This is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.”

How do we take a grieving, sorrowful heart and return to hope, joy, and gladness? Death is not the end. Death is a transition of life on earth to life in heaven. A loved one takes their last breath of polluted earthly air and takes their first breath of perfected celestial air. They are instantly in the presence of the Lord. They are immediately healed.  They have no more illness, imperfection, or pain. This perspective should bring our focus to the eternal life we have in Christ, not the temporal life we have on earth. We will see our loved ones again if they, too, had faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  Jesus gave this message of hope to His disciples before He died in John 16:22, “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”

We will never fully get over the loss of a loved one. A piece of our heart was taken, and we feel the absence of their presence. This is when we can invite The Presence to come and enter into our sorrowful hearts.  David knew pain and loss well. He was alone and isolated. His heart was faint, and, at times, he thought he could not go on. In those dark moments, David called out to God.  He said in Psalm 61:2, “From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint.  Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”  He asked God to lead him out of the depths of despair. He asked God to give him the strength to go on. He said in Psalm 73:26, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”  He trusted in God’s love. “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation” (Psalm 13:5). The one thing He could rejoice in, no matter the grief, pain, or loss, was his eternal salvation. This was where he placed his hope. This is where he found his joy.  

Our salvation is not just for eternity. Our salvation is now. God the Father wants to be with us in our grief. He wants to be our Great Comforter. David understood this. He knew that focusing on the Lord would enable him to grow in hope and gladness of heart.  “I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.  Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.  For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.  You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:8-11). God wants us to see He is walking before us, preparing us for the day ahead, maybe even the hour ahead. He is at our right hand, to give us the strength to take one step at a time. God has not abandoned us in our grief. He enters into it with us.  

God understands devastating loss. He watched His only Son, Jesus, be beaten and murdered as a sinless, innocent man. God chose to place all of His wrath on His Son so that we won’t ever have to experience His anger. He abandoned Jesus on the cross because Jesus took on the sins of the world so that we could receive His righteousness and be in the presence of God.  God understands grief. God also understands that death is not the end. Jesus conquered death on the cross, and we, too, will conquer death one day and be in the presence of the Lord forever. For our hearts to become glad in times of sorrow, we must seek the presence of the Lord. It is there we will find peace, hope, and eventually gladness again. 

Take a Moment:

• Do you tend to run to God or away from God when you are grieving? 

• How can you practice inviting God into your seasons of mourning so that you can be encouraged by His presence? 

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, You understand grief and loss. Thank You for offering me Your presence when I feel alone in my grief.  Please come and comfort me with Your presence. Remind me of the joy of my salvation. I have hope that You will restore gladness in my life from the inside out. Amen.