Friends,

I hate sin.  I hate the lies that sin tells us that happiness is found apart from God.  I hate the brokenness that sin brings into relationships and the world.  I hate that sin does not glorify our Loving Father and Savior Jesus.  I hate sin and look forward to eternity without sin, but in this world, broken by sin, we will have grief.

Every lost opportunity, every broken relationship, every loss, comes with grief.  We have all felt it.  When grief comes, people will pursue healing.  They will do this in one of two ways, they will pursue healing by coming humbly before God, or they will pursue healing apart from God in the world.  For those how have experienced the comfort and healing God brings through times of grief, they know that the pain of grief can be a blessing towards something better.  In my own life, my greatest periods of growth in holiness and my pursuit of God (and therefore joy in my relationship with God) have always come during times of grief.

Ultimately, it comes down to this – God loves us too much to let us run after things that are going to keep us away from Him.  There are times when the most loving thing God can do is wreck our world so that we see that everything we were hoping in is a lie.  Only God can meet the desires of our heart.  We are not meant to walk each day under our own power, we’re meant to walk in the power of God’s Spirit, through the grace he provides to us each day.  God in His love will bring pain and grief from our sin and others to show us that we’re not in control, we have no power to change anything, and we are hopeless in ourselves.  God reminds us that He created all things, and is in control of all things.  God reminds us that we are His, and we can always hope in Him because God already accomplished everything for us that we need in Jesus.  So we run to Him, broken, but repentant and hopeful in Him.  This is the mercy and the love of God.  If you are in a season of grief, don’t allow yourself to be swallowed up by your emotions, and do not allow yourself to try to medicate your pain through the world, but run to your loving Father humbly with a repentant heart.  He is Love, He is Comfort, and He is the only one who can bring true healing and lasting joy.

2 Corinthians 7:8-11 – “if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. 9 As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.  10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. 11 For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.”

Know you are loved and prayed for.

Grace and Peace,

Adam