Grieving with hope is perhaps what sets Christianity a part from the other religions of the world

It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. —Deuteronomy 31:8 (ESV)

Recently, we received the news of another grieving family from our church with the loss of their grown daughter through circumstances unknown. 

 I sent a message via Facebook telling him how sorry I was that they had to travel down this painful road. His response back to me said it all when he described their current state of their brokenness. My response and I think it is the response of all believers who love and follow the words of Jesus was that we consider it a privilege to travel with them down this forlorn and rough path of grief.

I think this is what sets Christianity apart from other religions. 

 Most religions have a unique 'goodness' with them and I do not condemn others for following those paths. One Islamic friend referred to religion as the 'transformation of the soul' in hs talk he gave in the beginning of Transformative circles, a group that was established to build better understanding with our increasingly diverse ethnic community.

  As I started reflecting on that concept, I began to see the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and how he indwells in each of us through the Holy spirit. The moment I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart in 1974 became the cornerstone of my life.

When Peter addressed the crowd in the book of Acts chapter 2 he said these things in verse 22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men,[d] put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

Peter referred to David's words about our Lord:

25 David said about him:


“‘I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest in hope,
27 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.

If one were to line up all religions on the same linear surface, one would see lines pointing up to God, with the performance of good works in order to reach God. Christianity is the only religion where God is actually pointing down and being a bridge because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross and in his resurrection, and through the power of the Holy spirit, he gives to believers.

It is this personal knowledge of God that gives all believers the assurance that when death enters our household, not only is our loved one who has died escorted into heaven with a new spiritual body, unlike their decayed earthly one, but God assures us that Jesus Christ will walk with us to help us recover from this pain.

So, when Christian believers suffer painful losses God gives us the assurance that our grieving is with hope.

As a Christian believer, it is a privilege to walk with those suffering the loss of a loved one. God calls followers of Christ o pray for grieving families, to listen to those in grief and to encourage them while they are on this painful road of missing their loved one.

This is perhaps  what sets Christianity a part from other religions of the world.

The choice is yours. You can believe that God has a orderly purpose for this world by sending his son to die for us, or you can believe what Friedrich Nietzsch said that God is dead.and see life as one pain numbing party.

but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31

We live in a world that is falling apart. It isn't the world that God intended it to be, but mankind's'insistence of being in control has created the vacuum for  evil to enter.

What if, like Nero our happiness from any given day came down between taking the  red or the blue pill? 

Every day we wake up we have a choice to make a difference. We can fall into the trap the world sets for us by telling us there are no moral absolutes, that God is a fictional character with no power to change us, and we can do anything in this world if it feels good, or as  Friedrich Nietzsche would say, 'God is dead'.

Or, we can wake up continuing to believe that God exists, that he has a plan for our lives, sent his son to die for each of us and we have the power of God dwelling in each of us  to counter the   fatalistic 'God is dead' world view. 

It is your choice, but please remember, like Nero, making the wrong choice will send you down a dangerous spiral of despair and calamity as if you were on a fast moving slide into the abyss.

 You see,that God is alive view and you see a  hope for a better tomorrow. You believe the opposite and you see no reason to stop partying, consuming pain ending drugs and consuming  alcohol just so you can get drunk and momentarily take away the pain. 

Just knowing that I have the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit  strengthens me by allowing me to filter the bad news  of today through the lens of Jesus and motivates me to  read my bible and pray for  others around me and inspires me to give honor to God,by having regular quiet times  and asking God to show me the truth from the bible to help me get through the day.

 One worldview creates negativity, while the other. gives me a positive outlook on life that desparately needs to see such an outlook. One says 'what's the use' and motivates me to continue the endless cycle of drugs and alcohol consumption and all of the serious health problems that are created. 

The God is alive view leads me on a path of positive thinking by giving me hope that my faith in Jesus Christ can be the cog in the wheel that helps people change for the better..

 One worldview forces me to give up hope and pull the blanket over my eyes so I can go back to sleep.  The other one makes me want to get up in the morning, after having a really bad day and tackling the chores of today with a fervent optimism.

 When we know that God is very much alive makes us a beacon of  light to the world in search of anything to give them hope. It is our faith that puts into perspective the calamities and unthinkable evil this world offers us on a daily basis. 

On the contrary, if I choose to fall into the trap of the fatalistic God is dead, anything goes mentality worldview I begin spiraling down a hopeless slope of despair of which there is no end.

The choice is yours and yours alone, but I will continue to believe that God has a purpose for my life and despite what happens to me from any given day, God will see me through and give me a hope for tomorrow.

When familiar places that once brought you comfort close.......

8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them.Hebrews 13:8-9

I may have mentioned in past blogs how important  rituals are in surviving the loss of a loved one.Rituals for us, and I think for most people, bring comfort. When we continue to attend the same worship service week after week, sitting in the same section  gives us the security at the moment our lives have been jolted and our security threatened.

It is when tragedy happens that our brains  take a major assault and why major life decisions  must wait several months before we act on them. I read, for example, that the parents of murdered  Jon Benet Ramsey, fell into major financial problems in the months and years after the loss of their daughter.

For our family, it was the familiarity and the warm memories of eating at those same restaurants after our loss that gave us a sense of comfort and security. I knew that we could not run away from our grief, avoid those places we enjoyed before our loss, and  the greatest thing we could do would be to create new memories with those places we enjoyed as a family of four. 

I knew that  grief wasn't something to run from, nor avoided and if we were ever to be successful with navigating this grief we must travel through the pain associated with our loss rather than avoiding it by tossing all of our emotions into a steel vault and tossing it in the sea.

It was in reading the Star Tribune online edition that my emotional heart strings were jerked when one of our families favorite eating places was closed because of what the paper described as changing pattern of dining out.

I was hoping, as I read the article, to find they had kept the Champlin location open, but that wasn't the case. As I saw that location listed I immediately, I saw a rapid succession of images of my family at each age eating at this  Rudy Tuesdays with the reality that a place that has brought so much comfort was no longer there for us. The loss of this particular Rudy Tuesdays location brought back an even earlier memory--the place my wife ate at before returning home from our honeymoon.

The loss of this familiar place taught me another lesson. That lesson is how important my faith in Jesus Christ continues to play in our families life and in this grief journey. While we can hope that familiar places are still there for us to give us that security, our greater security is knowing that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He will never leave us, no matter how disoriented our lives become with the disappearance of those once familiar places!

He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow!