Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The Lonely Journey of Grief, Part 13 of 15

IDEA: Guard the center of your life.

PURPOSE: To help listeners understand the importance of living life with Christ at the hub of the wheel of life.

Our lives resemble a wheel—what is put at the hub holds the spokes together. The harshest grief comes when the core of life has been shattered.

I. Those who put the wrong thing at the hub of their life may find that the center wobbles.

Possessions can be the hub of my life.

Wealth can so possess people that everything—family, church, occupation, recreation, friendships—is governed by that center. Relationships are often sacrificed to the accumulation of wealth. When a loved one is gone, the fickleness of possessions as the hub of a life is revealed. But it’s too late to be sustained by a mature faith through the trauma of grief.

Power can become the hub of my life.

Power is the heady delight of controlling people and institutions. Everything is centered on gaining more power. Then an election is lost, a position is phased out, or a loved one dies or leaves, and the resulting grief can overwhelm someone stripped of their reason for living.

Even people can become a wobbly hub of my life.

A family can become the major reason for living. Wives and husbands and children make good spokes in the wheel, but terrible hubs. When a partner dies or children are taken from us, we may be devastated because they alone were all that really mattered.

II. Guard your center by nurturing your faith before loss.

Grief is tempered if you have an eternal center for your life. The good news of the Bible is simply this: You can have a relationship with the eternal God by centering your life on Jesus Christ. He can become the hub of your life.

People who have an unflinching faith in the sovereign God do not deny grief. But even in their darkest, most wrenching hours, they borrow God’s strength. In their tears and pain they cling to God who will never let them go.

Such people demonstrate greatness under trial. Those who fail to do so often seem unprepared to handle even the smaller losses we all face from time to time. Persons who are spiritually more mature seem to be able to wrestle more effectively because they are aided by the conviction that God is with them. They don’t feel they have to face the present and future alone.

III. People of faith don’t just suddenly get that way.

Like the athlete who must stay in training, these people are always in training for whatever may come at any time. When loss comes, they are ready for it. They grieve deeply over their loss, to be sure, and they too go through the stages of grief But they eventually come to understand that everything has not been taken from them. Much in life can be affirmed, and to affirm something is to say that it is good.

At a time of great loss, people who have a mature faith give evidence of an uncommon relationship with God, and they demonstrate an uncommon inner sense of strength and poise growing out of their confidence that this relationship can never be taken away from them. They know that they can face any earthly loss without having lost all. They still have God. This way of looking at life makes an amazing difference in the quality of the grief experience. It actually can become good grief!

Don’t expect the grieving person to “become his or her old self again.” Deep grief changes us irrevocably. We come out of it different people—stronger or weaker, healthier in spirit or sicker—than we were before the loss. But when we are shaken and we know that life will never be the same again, we can trust and not be afraid. We can live in hope with the sturdy confidence that God will dry our tears and put us on our feet again.