Grieving and Forgiveness

This post is part of a blog carnival where everyone writes on one word, this time: grief.  Thanks to Peter Pollock and Bridget Chumbley and be sure to check out the entries. I am sure they will be insightful and rich (as they always are).

In yesterday’s entry I talked about forgiveness and specifically what unforgiveness will do to our spiritual lives.  It’s like a cancer that eats at us and that bitterness becomes uncontrollable even if it seemed nonthreatening at first.

When I started thinking about grief, I kept being drawn back to this area of forgiveness because there are several things God keeps making very real to me.

Sometimes we get duped into thinking that if we can manage to forget the pain of the past or the hurt of other people then we’ll be fine.  God is very good at getting to the bottom of things.  He’s not content with us being “all right” because He offers absolute healing.  The price He paid was so we could overcome! That healing is most often a process, but not facing grief doesn’t make it go away.

We may think it’s too painful to deal with, but what kind of pain do we open ourselves up to when we get bitter and harbor the hurts.  Perhaps on our own, it is too painful, but we are not alone.

Grieving in God is not meant to be forever.  Psalm 30:5 says, “…His anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

Remember the story of Joseph.  Since he was a guy like us, I am certain he had to grieve in the process of forgiveness.  Waking up every day a slave who was betrayed by his own brothers, missing his father and mother and home, not knowing how things would turn, eventually going to prison wrongfully—there was much to grieve and plenty to forgive.  His "night" of weeping lasted a long time, but God's plan and word was working the entire time.  Rejoicing and joy did come.

What Joseph understood and I want to understand more deeply is that if God is bigger than my circumstances, I have to forgive.

If I were to paraphrase, this is what Joseph told his brothers when he revealed himself and then saved the entire family from death.  Genesis 45 breaks it down so clearly when Joseph says, “And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you… it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

Wait a minute! I thought my difficulties and hardships were because people are jerks and they were out to hurt me and destroy me.  You mean God can use all of this and fold it into His plan?

Joseph faced up to the despicable things done to him and chose to walk out forgiveness.  Why? Because again, if God is bigger and greater than my present circumstances and situation, then there is no other choice than to grieve the loss and then forgive.

That’s what God does every single day and why Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us that we may be sons of our Father in heaven (Matt. 5:44-45).  Every hurt, bit of suffering (large or small), pain, wrong committed, false judgment, curse, whatever—He is more than able.

Our God is indeed bigger than anything you are currently facing and whatever or whoever has caused it.  Open your eyes wide, grieve what was lost, then let forgiveness unlock a door of joy and peace like never before.