10 The length of our days is seventy years-- or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Hang around people long enough and you cannot help but feel the pain of sorrow and loss. Pastors are suppose to be people who know how to enter into someone's sorrow and help them find their way out....that seldom happens in my experience. The risk, and danger, of pastoral guidance is that it is often too "soon", and the person is not ready to make the changes necessary to go on.
Life at times is like walking through a marshy bog. Every step lends itself to the possibility that the boots will get stuck in the ground and trying to pick up one's foot will only result in a wet, boggy foot!
How to do forward? How to get one foot in front of the other.
Reading Paul's letter to the Corinthians, he writes about things that are important in the area of sorrow and loss.
2 Corinthians 7:1-11 (NIV)
1 Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
The goal must be clear...what do I want from this all? Purity of heart, purity in the soul, purity in the Spirit...all for the clear sense of a holy desire to honor God...that must be our only goal.
2 Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have exploited no one.
3 I do not say this to condemn you; I have said before that you have such a place in our hearts that we would live or die with you.
I had a friend who walked through a long period of sorrow and loss...a lot longer than I thought it should take. I kept coming back to my judgments. I made lots of judgments. "You should move on"..."You should not stay stuck"... I made lots of judgments trying to help this person get unstuck. I realize now that I let my judgments become more important than the relationship needs.
There's a story from the Desert Fathers that speaks volumes about this: "There was a brother at Scetis who had committed a fault. So they invited Abba (which means "teacher") Moses. He refused to go. The priest sent someone to say to him. 'They're all waiting for you.' So Moses got up and set off; he took a leaky jug and filled it with water and took it with him. The others came out to meet him and said, 'What is this Father?' The old man said to them, 'My sins run out behind me and I cannot see them, yet here I am coming to sit in judgment on the mistakes of someone else? When they heard this, they called the meeting off."
As Paul walks the Corinthians through this place of sorrow and loss he makes it clear...it has actually helped much in bringing about an awareness of God.
8 Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it--I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while--
9 yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us.
10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
The nature of sorrow, loss, is that given time to incubate in the soul - in a manner that is consistent with someone seeking God's will over all other things - the sorrow can lead us to a correction, a place of awareness of the will of God over all other things. This is the goal...to discover God...not to get our way.
I visited a man who is close to my heart and who is dying yesterday. It is both sad to see his life coming to an end; and it is joyous to know that nothing in life means anything now...all he has and waits for is Jesus.
Peace
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