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Suffering, Sorrow, and Grieving Well – Highlight Episode 320 · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Today we have a special guest with us, all the way from Canada through wonderful, revolutionary technology.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: We have our brother Tim Challies with us.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Many of you are familiar with Tim.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: He is a pastor, a noted speaker, a prolific author of several books and numerous articles.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: He's also a pioneer in the Christian blogosphere.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Tens of thousands of people visit Challiescom each day, which makes it one of the most widely read and recognized Christian blogs in the world.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: There's some books, nobody wants to write, and yet you feel like you've got this opportunity to write it, and that was very much the case with Seasons of Sorrow.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: And the book begins on November 3rd 2020, which was the evening that my son very unexpectedly went to be with.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: The evening that my son very unexpectedly went to be with the Lord, he was a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, newly engaged, doing well in life, preparing for what he thought would be a lifetime in pastoral ministry, and then, just in an instant, his heart failed and he was gone, and so that launched us into the season of sorrow, of deep suffering.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: And because I've been writing for all this time, writing is the way I think, writing is the way I meditate, writing is the way I grapple with what's going on in life, and so I didn't really know what to do in this situation but to write, and the writing then later became this book, seasons of Sorrow.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Tim, I love the fact that you titled the book Seasons of Sorrow and, based on what you just said a little bit ago too, sorrow is not one size fits all.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Grieving is not one size fits all.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: We're all different in our personality.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Ray conveyed the way that he handled it.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Others go through it intensely, some for a short amount of time, some for a long amount of time, so it's important for us to remember that.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: But I want to share a quote from the book and I'd love you to elaborate on this.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Carved into the palm of God's hand, nestled in His care, I'm safe whatever harm befalls me, not because of my faithfulness, but because of His.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Well, in our losses and we were just talking about this in our losses we have to go to something, someone who will give meaning to them.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: And if I was an atheist, if I didn't believe in God at all, I could find no meaning, no purpose in my losses.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: If I believed in some God but not the God of the Bible, I still couldn't find meaning or purpose in my losses.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: But because we are known and loved by our God, the God who created us, the God who gives us purpose, the God who loves us and the God who has called us to serve Him, we can find great meaning in our losses.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: So we can get very distracted by asking the why questions why would God do this?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: And I think very little good ever comes out of that.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: God doesn't reveal the whys to us in most cases, but what he does help us see is that God means to use these things.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: He means to change us and make us better and allow us to serve his purposes.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: And yeah, so that's the comfort and the duty we find in our sorrows to take these things and to turn them outward, to embrace them as part of God's purposes and to bear them for this light, momentary affliction until we finally do experience that great weight of glory that's to come and the reason it happens is so that we may comfort those who are going through similar sorrows.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: And we tend to think, oh, that's those that surround me.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: But we need to lift up our eyes and look on the fields.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: I think the words of Jesus where he said, behold, lift up your eyes and look on the fields they're white and ready to harvest.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: That word behold is like a little trumpet, a little heralding when Scripture uses it to say something important is coming.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: And then he said lift up your eyes.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: And we can tend to be so caught up in our little world and what we're suffering and what we're going through we forget the world is ready for what we've got.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: The fields are white, under harvest.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Remember when we go through grief and trials that just want to rip our soul apart.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: We've got a house built on rock and when those storms come, we don't collapse.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: We rest in the promises of God.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: But the ungodly crash they run to alcohol, run to suicide.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: Grief should drive us into the irksome task of evangelism, reaching out to those who are still in the shadow of death.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: Amen.
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: It's important to remember that God is working through it, not just passing by it Right, and I love Makoto Fujimori.
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: In his book on art and faith he equates it to Kintsugi art.
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: There was this Japanese warrior and his favorite teapot breaks and he's furious about it.
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: And one day an artist comes along and is like I can make it to something better, more beautiful.
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: And so he doesn't glue it back together to hide the cracks.
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: What he does is see a beauty in the cracks, and so he uses gold to fuse it together and to highlight what was once broken.
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: And Makoto Fujimori points out that Thomas sees the glorified Jesus and sees holes in his hands, that even in the suffering of Christ, in this glorified state, there is a remnants of suffering, but it's filled, it's glorious, it's beautiful and in that same way our suffering, god is working through that.
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: He's the great Kintsugi artist that is bringing it back together to make something beautiful out of our lives for both a purpose to serve others and to glorify himself.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, proverbs 3.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: Lean not on your own understanding.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: All your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths.
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: Listen to the Amplified.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: Lean on trust in and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind, and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: In all your ways, know, recognize and acknowledge him and he will direct and make straight and plain your paths.
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: Listen, spurgeon, I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages.
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: Love that Catch.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: That first part I learned right.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: Did he learn just in the sanctuary?
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: No, he learned in the storm as well.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: He learned to kiss the wave that throws him against the rock of ages.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: There is not a safer place, there's not a better place to be than in the presence of God.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: In the midst of that difficulty, no need to fight it, no need to argue against it.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no need to raise your fist against God.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: We raise our hands to God.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: We don't raise our fists to God.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: We don't put him in the dock.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: He's not on trial, right?
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: We don't accuse him of wrongdoing because he has never done anything wrong.
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Again, the natural man doesn't understand the things of the Spirit of God.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: They're foolishness to him.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: But when your eyes are open, when you know God, you still grieve, you still mourn, you still sorrow, but there's that understanding that carries you through.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: That's what happened with Job at the outset.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Then he started to kind of lose focus at times as he's corresponding with his friends.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: But we need to remember that Christ is our hope.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Those of you listening right now, that have been listening maybe for a while and we've had even atheists who have said they listen to the podcast and they're still atheists.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: But those of you that are listening now, some of the things you've heard us say are foreign to you.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: They're foreign to you for a reason it's because you don't know the one that all of us know here on the podcast, the one that Tim knows, that has carried him through his grief, grief that he's able even to continue it in his life and to do what he's doing now and sharing this with us.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: So you need to know him.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: That's the answer.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: The key is, when we go through fiery trials is to long for the promises of God to be fulfilled in your life.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Nothing drives me to a deeper desire for heaven like hell on earth.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: When things go bad, it makes us long for the coming kingdom.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Cs Lewis says has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret?
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: And it's so true.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Grief and trials produce a precious longing for the coming kingdom.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: And so I look back and say with a psalmist God, please don't listen.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: It was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: And so affliction, fiery trials, all these things.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Lion's dens bring us to our knees, and it is horrifying when a Christian says shake your fist at God, tell him you're angry.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: That makes me shudder.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: When you're in a lion's den, get on your knees, don't hold your fist up, because he's your only hope and he's faithfully promised.
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: You bring up a good subject, which is how do we come alongside those who are grieving?
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: There are times where we need to avoid using cliches.
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: I think also, as the scriptures say I think you quoted it earlier there's a time to speak and a time to be quiet.
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: That can be really hard to do, let's admit it can be really hard to do.
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: Let's admit it can be really hard to do.
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: You know, a friend of ours lost their four-month baby and I was in the room we had to take that baby out of their hands and hand it away.
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: And then it's just me and the dad sitting there and he is just in the deepest of sorrows and in that moment I remember hauntingly he is like the Lord gives and takes away.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: And then he says he shouldn't do that.
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: And I remember wanting to correct him.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: I remember wanting to be like well, take it easy, you know, careful with where your mind goes in that moment.
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: But I just sensed now was not a time to speak and so I just put my hands on him and I prayed for him and I was worried for his faith.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: And then later on that day I'm driving him and his wife home from the hospital to go tell their four-year-old, and in the back seat I see him lean over, grab his wife's hand and say let's pray.
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: And he prayed a prayer of just trust and dependence on the sovereignty of God.
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: And so there's a time to speak and there's a time to be quiet.
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: There's a time to pray as we come along and weep with those who weep.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, grieving.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: Well, the world does not understand that there is a hopelessness attached to this.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: And you think of almost this purity, this oil that comes forward, that cannot be birthed in any other way than in the midst of sorrow, in the midst of grief, in the midst of mourning, knowing that it comes from the hand of God.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: And, of course, we live in a fallen world and, living in a fallen world with fallen creatures, we make fallen decisions.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: I get that, I understand that.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: But coming from the hand of God, as a mercy from God to create a way in order that we might fully be able to walk in the work which he has prepared beforehand and to worship Him in a way where we never would have been able to otherwise.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: This is a reflection of being able to grieve well, as God has commanded and designed us to do so, but we need not run away and abstain from grieving.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: It can be a very difficult thing, but it can also be a very beautiful thing.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: I suppose I would want people to know what somebody said to me in the very early days, which is simply you can do this.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: It can seem like God has called you to do something that's impossible, and there's a sense in which that's true.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: It's impossible to pass through this with Christian character intact, with your faith in God intact, alone, without His help.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: But God is so willing and so able and so eager to help us in our sorrows.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: He is that kind, loving father, and so when you go into these times of deep sorrows, I want somebody to come to you and say you can do this.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: By God's grace, with God's mercy, you can pass through this with your faith unspoiled, with your love for God intact, with your faith in Him even increased, your love for Him grown, and you will see God's purposes in it, you will see God's smile in it and God will prove Himself faithful Amen.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Friends, we value your time, so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Without the jokes and fellowship, be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv.