GRIEF

No one seeks out grief. No one invites grief into their home or accepts grief as a friend. If anything, grief is kept at a distance, at least at arm’s length. It is viewed as something to witness in the lives of others but not up close.

Grief is a natural response to loss. It is the emotional suffering one feels when something or someone the individual loves is taken away. Grief comes to us when we lose something we value. It may be a loved one from death, divorce, or indifference. It may be a job, a home that burns down with all your family pictures, the death of a family pet or the friendship of someone you really care about.

WORD of GOD

This was the way I felt when God the Father called me to be an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. To be an Apostle was not something I aspired to or even thought to be. As I read the Word of God, I saw the Apostles of Jesus’ day experiencing hardship, struggle, beatings, belittlement, but most of all; I saw the grief that comes when people reject the Word of God and remain in their sin only to face the judgment of Almighty God.

In the case of an Apostle, the loss is not the physical death of a loved one or even the loss of a friendship; it is greater than that. The person that an Apostle feels great sorrow over and grieves over might not even be someone he knows intimately.

SORROW

I remember the first time I felt this grief. It was while working the evening shift at IMC while going to Bible College. I was the janitor cleaning the floors and there was a young girl working in the office. I began asking about her relationship with God and found out she didn’t have one. After many weeks of talking to her about how she could be reconciled with God through repentance and faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, she told me this.

“Bob, I believe everything you are telling me BUT I have a fiancé who is not a Christian. If I become a Christian, I’m afraid he will leave me and I love him so much I don’t want to lose him. I’m sorry”. This she told me with tears running down her cheeks. I never talked to her again about Jesus and salvation.

When I got by myself I cried like a little baby. There was a hurt within me that cut like a knife. The hurt and pain was more than I could bear. I hardly knew this girl except to say hello but God had given me a love for her soul and I wanted to pluck her out of the fire but could not. I had to find a way to deal with this hurt.

REACTION

When we experience Grief, it means we are reacting or responding to the loss. To be sure, we will do one or the other. How we choose to react or respond will make a big difference in how we will live the rest of our life every time we experience a similar loss.

We can understand the reality of these two words when we see them in context of a medicine that is given to a sick person. The person can either have a reaction to the medicine, which is negative, or they can respond to the medicine, which is positive.

However, we are not talking about our body reacting or responding but our soul and our spirit. How we deal with situations, especially spiritual ones will affect our life going forward with Christ and the Holy Spirit.

 

GOOD NEWS

As we live for Christ, He will lead us to evangelize, pray for those who are hurting, lay hands on the sick and give sacrificially to others. However, we will find that they do not always respond the way we hope. We share the love of God but people reject – The Good News. We pray for those hurting but they keep doing the same things over and over again ending up in the same pit and we lay hands on the sick but God’s healing power is blocked by their unbelief. To those in need, we give to uplift them just to find that they are takers waiting for their next handout. It seems like our love is wasted because it goes unvalued.

What we experience is nothing new to God; He has experienced the same from the beginning of time. God offered the tree of life to Adam and Eve. But before they could eat from it they had to pass a test; they failed. Just because He knew they would fail, it did not lessen the heartbreak He felt. He knew the consequences they faced. God would deprive them of the tree of life and they were escorted out of the Garden of Eden to face a life of hardship and pain. Justice calls for justice to be served.

HEARTBREAK

God experienced another heartbreak when Cain rejected His forgiveness and encouragement regarding his offering and then went and killed Abel. God had no choice but to pronounce a curse upon him when Abel’s blood cried out to Him for Justice.

The People of Israel rejected God’s love when He brought them out of Egypt to take them into the Promised Land by saying one to another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt”. They broke God’s heart and it was only Moses’s intercession that turned God striking them with pestilence and disinheriting them. This was not a case of God reacting but it was a teachable moment for God to impart His heart into Moses.

And again, when Samuel was leading the People of Israel from victory to victory over their enemies, they rejected God as their king and wanted an earthly King. God’s heart was broken but He has always had a plan to fulfill His purposes.

GOD

God never acts or reacts from a position of His emotions. His emotions from hurt and pain where never from physical trauma but where always attacked against His Being. His loss from rejection and disobedience where greater than any loss we could ever imagine. Yet He always expressed His grief (his response from His loss of intimate relationship) with thoughts of love and compassion. It was never about Him but the real LOSS that the people were going to experience.

As an Apostle, one who is called to represent God and act on His behalf, I have experienced this loss when people have rejected His love, His forgiveness, His provision, His salvation thereby rejecting God Himself. This loss translates into PAIN.

This PAIN was what I was wanting to avoid when I told God I didn’t want to be an Apostle. I wasn’t sure I could handle the grief in a manner worthy of an Apostle.

But God’s grace is greater then what we could ever think. There is no loss that we can’t go through and be strong and victorious. There is no loss that can destroy our victory or tear us away from the joy of the Lord.

Author Profile

Robert Farrier
Robert Farrier
Robert Farrier is an apostolic voice for today. He travels internationally proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom of God and awakening God’s people to the joy and reality of Kingdom Living. Through His Leaders Conferences and books, he is exposing Christ’s disciples to the process of growing in maturity and is providing the tools that lead to an adventure of being an OverComer.
For over 25 years Robert preached in communists nations, the Middle and Far East reaching those that had never heard of the Redeeming Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thousands received Forgiveness, Healing, and Deliverance.
His recent activity has been in the nations of Haiti, Dominican Republic and Colombia, where for the last 10 years he has conducted Pastor/Leader Kingdom Conferences and is a sought after conference speaker. Bob also holds miracle crusades to reach the unsaved by showing the reality of God’s power through Healings, Miracles, Signs and Wonders.
Apostle Farrier is the founder of Leaders on Fire. This ministry is reaching out to Pastors/Leaders in small groups to:
Expose - them to the hope and unlimited potential found in Kingdom Living
Enable- them to achieve their Divine Destiny and to make them into amazingly productive citizens of the Kingdom of God
Equip – them to become a person of influence; a person of great possibilities in their home, community and business
Enrich – them with the tools that are needed to fight the battles of life and be victorious. Please contact me at robertf@overcominggrief.org
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