I have recently been providing prayer support and spiritual counsel to a friend, helping them to get through grieving the loss of multiple loved ones, within the last few months. this has prompted me to think a lot about grief and how we grieve and why we grieve, especially as Christians. As I have thought through these things and have searched Scripture, a thought occurred to me that had not occurred before. It is sin that most grieves God. It is death that most grieves us. Sin leads to death. Is there a connection? I think there is.
At one time or another, we will all experience grief. Many things can cause us to grieve but I think what most often invokes feelings of grief, and the deepest grief, is death. Why is this so? If we love someone, then we usually enjoy their company, maybe their wise counsel, maybe the way we are affected by their personality, maybe their encouragement, just all sorts of things. When they pass away, those things are gone from our life. If they were a Christian and if we are a Christian, then we will see them again, but that will often be years or decades and that can certainly feel like forever. I think we all know what that feels like.
God grieves too, which isn’t surprising, given that we are made in His image. In fact, I would say that it is because He grieves that we grieve. God the Father grieves (Genesis 6:6). God the Son grieves (Mark 3:5), and the Holy Spirit grieves (Ephesians 4:30). Clearly, the ability to experience grief is an integral part of God’s nature.
So, what causes God grief? Ultimately, I think it’s the same thing that causes us grief, death and loss. In each of the above examples, God’s grief was caused by sin. Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death” and “death”, in this context, means eternal separation from God. We grieve the death of our loved ones because we have lost them and will miss them. God grieves our sin because it will ultimately result in our spiritual death, our eternal separation from Him, and He will miss us.
I think some of the worse grief is anticipatory grief. My dad has Alzheimer’s. He was just diagnosed a few months ago but he is declining quickly. It seems like, every time I see him, his concentration and memory are worse. I know that he will eventually not even know who I am. Alzheimer’s is always fatal and, because of the way the disease progresses, we are losing him little by little. He and I have always been close and it’s hard for me to even write about this. It’s so hard, watching the gradual decline, knowing where it will eventually lead, and knowing there is nothing I can do to stop it.
Probably the absolute worst grief is over the loss of a child. I do not know what it is like to lose a child and I pray I never find out. My brother and my sister have both lost very young children. I watched the anguish that they went through because of that loss, anguish like none I have ever seen. The loss was even very hard for me, as the children’s uncle, and I cannot imagine what it was like for my brother and my sister, who were their parents.
Now, imagine if you combine these two, anticipatory grief over the impending loss of a child. I know that some don’t have to imagine, as they have lost children to diseases like cancer, and those people have my heartfelt sympathy. My point here is that I think this is the same kind of grief that our sin causes God to feel. Our sin separates us from him (Isaiah 59:2) and, if we come to the end of our life having not come to a relationship with Him as Lord and Savior, then we are lost to Him forever.
It doesn’t have to be that way. The first part of Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death”. However, the rest of the verse says “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. God has the cure to this terminal disease we all have. Imagine God, sitting at our bedside, so to speak, with us dying of this terminal disease called sin. He begs us to take his Gift of eternal life. This gift is not entirely free, for once we have excepted this gift, our life belongs to Him (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Too often, we don’t understand this gift or fully realize the value of it and so are unwilling to pay the price. We realize that our disease makes us not feel good and we try to medicate in all kinds of ways, accomplishing things, collecting possessions, boosting self worth, sometimes short term pleasures like drugs or sex, etcetera. God knows that these medications won’t work, that they make us feel better in the short term but that they sometimes even hasten our ultimate demise. He sits there, watching us die, knowing that we are headed for eternal separation from Him, knowing that He can save us, if we will only make the decision. Too often, we resist making the decision, we resist Him. Can you imagine the grief that must cause Him?
Can you imagine the anticipatory grief, as He watches us slip further and further away from Him, all the while knowing that He has given us the power to stop it from happening? Can you imagine the joy He then feels, when some of us exercise that power and, rather than being lost, we are now saved? Try to imagine this, from His prospective. Kind of changes your prospective, doesn’t it?
I believe that God’s grief is anticipatory grief at the thought of losing us for ever, to the terminal disease of sin. I believe that it is because God grieves death that we grieve death. I believe that our grief is only a shadow of His grief, because His love is so great and because our death is very preventable, if we will only open our heart to Him. I believe that realization of these things should give us a renewed sense of His love for us and zeal for pointing hearts toward Him. What do you believe? More importantly, what will you do about it?
