The Struggle is real // Week 8

 Grief
Lamentations November 10, 2019   

1. Introduction:
   1. Power point of 75th images on our FB page that people can save and make the image their phone background as a reminder!
   2. One man described grief like this
      1. As for grief, you’ll find it comes in When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. All you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.
      2. In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months or years, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. However, in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.
      3. Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall or 50 feet tall. While they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming; an anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. When it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.
   3. Grief is the emotional and mental response to loss (loss of a job, a relationship, a dream, a loved one’s life, etc.)! This loss sets off numerous emotions at the same time a series of conflicting thoughts, which all seem to be on steroids. 
      
       
   4. The book of Lamentations is about the deep grief the people of Jerusalem felt after God used Babylon to destroy the city Jerusalem, broke down their walls of defense, burned the temple, the king’s house and every house in the city, and took the people captive back to Babylon. They knew their own sin brought all this on! 
   5. While the whole book details out the condition of the city and the people, let’s get a general feel for it by just looking at a few summary verses
      1. Read 1:1, 3
      2. On top of that
         1. There was destruction everywhere and it touched everyone.
         2. Bodies were lying in the streets of both young and old who were slain by both the sword and by the hunger of famine
         3. To get a feel for what they were feeling think back of the images you saw the morning after the Twin Towers came down in New York on Sept 11, 2001

• Now let’s look at the condition of the people who had lost so much
• The Condition of the People
  1. It said:
     1. They were mourning and moaning and tears ran down like a river day and night.
     2. They were full of bitterness, greatly troubled and depressed in the core of their beings without hope or joy.
     3. Their strength failed and they were faint all day long, they were worn out and found no rest.
     4. Then the book is closed with this prayer.   Read 5:19-22
  2. The grieving soul is not always pretty and is full of many conflicting thoughts and emotions.
• How do you minister to someone like this, or if you are the person how do you find your bearings at a time like that? Actually the book of Lamentations gives us  
• Two pillars of truth that sustain us in grief!
  3. The first is to set my mind on God’s loving kindness and compassion. Turn to Lamentations 3.
     1. Read 3:21-24
     2. What gives us hope again is to redirect our thoughts back to the Lord’s loving kindness and His compassion and His faithfulness and that in the midst of the pain, daily He will give fresh mercies for what you need
        1. Loving kindness has to do with God’s love towards us based on our covenant relationship with Him. He is faithful to His promises to care for us
        2. Compassion has to do with God’s love towards us based upon the fact that His heart is moved towards us when He sees us in need!
        3. It is not just His promise to care for us but His heart for us that moves Him to meet us daily in our needs!
     3. Knowing this is true to wait upon the Lord for the deliverance He will bring. Read 25-26.
  4. The second truth that helps us regain our bearings in the middle of grief is recognizing God’s sovereignty - that nothing touches our life apart from God directing it or allowing it for purposes that are often higher than we can understand! Read 3:37-38
  5. Lon Alison, formerly the executive director of the Billy Graham Center, after being diagnosed with very aggressive liver cancer he was asked, “How this has impacted his faith and view of God?” He said,
     1. I have clung to two truths to sustain me. First is the sovereignty of God:  The second great truth is His love for me and my family:  
     2. The sovereignty of God means He has authority over this situation. He has allowed this cancer to strike me. He can cure it in a nanosecond, or allow it to grow within me. He is in charge.
     3. The love of God reminds me of His goodness lavished upon me and mine with His love. He is not a tyrant God, nor an absent God. His love is always present and extravagant. Those twin doctrines sustain me.

• The Book of Lamentations

1. Confirms three things for those who are suffering!
   1. First God’s love and God’s sovereignty help you regain your bearings in the midst of grief!    
   2. Second, it is a battle to turn your mind from the pain of your circumstances to the Lord!
   3. Finally, God’s daily compassions and faithfulness will carry you through your grief!
2. Interview
   1. I have asked four people who have recently gone through the deep experience of grief to share their story with us!