Wounds, Loneliness and Grief

 “My heart is wounded within me… I am gone like the shadow when it declineth.” Ps 109:23

 “I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.” Ps 22:17

“Reproach hath broken my heart… I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” Ps 69:20

“I called for my lovers, but they deceived me.” Lam 1:19

David’s entire life is a montage of the Christian life here on earth. It is a life of wounds, loneliness and grief.

Reckoned as a child to be future king over Israel, it wasn’t until he had fought his battles in the wilderness of this life for thirty years, that he eventually ascended to the throne. Betrayal, loneliness and grief dogged his entire life until death.

Many are the times when God has shown his people “hard things.” Many are the times God has made His people “to drink the wine of astonishment.” When Christ uttered the words “it is finished,” no doubt a lot of work got finished, but not all. Christ still works, as God still does.

Seated on the right hand of his Father, there is still more work to do before Christ’s Second Coming. This “first earth” is groaning, and is fallen. “All the foundations of the earth are out of course.” Until Christ comes again and puts everything back on course. Then all will be finished. In the “new heaven and a new earth… God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.”

Grief is always of a most aggravating and ineffable kind when it comes. The harp strings are broken. And we have hanged our harps upon the willows. How then shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? That’s more like how grief feels. It is one of those ineluctable things we have to do with in life. The “why’s” and “if’s” that assault and pulverize our sanity. The heart inside gets lacerated. Outside the air lumbers motionlessly as if in heavy stilts. Except one is in the grace of God one can die of a broken heart.

How Should We React?

Job’s friend’s fared well while they kept their silence. But then after one week without saying anything, their mouths felt compelled to say something. In the end that something very nearly killed Job. Sometimes it is better not to say anything at all however hard pressed we are.

Some refuse to reconcile their grief, perhaps the death of a loved one, with the idea of a just and loving God. “Where was God?” they ask. It depends in what attitude you ask that question. That will then determine whether you will receive an answer from God or not.

Most of our reaction to grief of any sort will usually be in direct proportion to the amount of knowledge we possess about God. If we had known God well then should we know Him like Job knew Him. “Shall we receive good at the hand God, and shall we not receive evil?” This does not mean God commits evil. He allows it, to bring about his own purposes in the world. Like He allowed Christ to suffer terrible shame and to die on the Cross like a condemned criminal. Redemption or liberation comes at a cost. “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.” 

Therefore believers don’t believe in God only when things are going their way, but we believe in Him too even when He makes us “to drink the wine of astonishment.” Remember it is his will that we pray to “be done in earth” and not ours. Sometimes that will might encapsulate very “hard things” upon our souls. “Can God will for my lover to reject me?” It might be for your own life’s sake. Or for their own life’s condemnation. No one forced Judas to betray Jesus. He did it out of his own free will. Therefore he condemned himself. In everything God knows the best.

That is the beauty of being in a personal relationship with Christ. “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” That implies somebody you know very well, and someone who knows you very well too. Someone you can trust. Someone who is your life and your strength. Someone who cannot betray you for thirty pieces of silver. Do you have such a friend? Of course it is a matter of vision. Which eyes are you wearing? The men in Hebrew Eleven saw beyond their normal eye sight. To see like that you have to wear the glasses God wears.

The wonderful thing is that God has never withdrawn our freedom to approach Him and reason with Him. After Christ’s redemptive work on the Cross, now we have both freedom and knowledge. We can go directly to the throne of grace… and pour out our troubles to Him in confidence, as if “face to face.”

Job and his friends employed that tool though they lacked much of the knowledge we now possess “in Christ.” But that did not hinder them. They went cerebral with God. Job especially went directly to the gates of heaven. He knocked and he never left knocking until God opened. Then God went cerebral too. To Job’s one hundred questions God asked Job one hundred questions in return. In the end Job admitted his abject ignorance, and he repented “in dust and ashes.” In the genre you choose to meet God in, in that genre God replies to you, and rewards you.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Your grieving is done. Your reasoning with God is over. It is then that you begin to understand that you were never alone. That there is much you did not understand then, but which you understand now. That immediately the light you cherished went out God lit another and placed it beside you. Only your tears prevented you from seeing it

Time heals. The frost will thaw. The plagues will distil, and wear off. The disquiet will vanish. Both the heart and the mind meeting at a point of sanguine convergence, will coalesce gradually into a calm halcyon repose. It is the peace of God. And in the end we will collect our harps from the willows and we will sing to our Lord a new song.