So, instead of talking about baseball, grilling
brats, and enjoying family vacations, many in our community have been
challenged to wrestle with deep, deep loss.
How can a small group community help bring some
measure of healing? Allow me to suggest
three primary ways:
1. Acknowledge
Pain/Doubt/Fear/Etc.
At your next gathering, ask group members
to open up about their personal heart-level engagement with whatever tragedy has
impacted them. Talk about your struggles with each other. Discuss your doubt. Share your fears. Be honest!
It’s not natural to watch a beautiflul mountain
range burn. It’s not normal for us to witness our homes, or those of our
friends, on fire. It’s unfathomable to consider the local movie theater as the
scene of real gunshots, and the death of friends, family, and co-workers.
This stuff is hard to comprehend. That's why everyone must begin by being honest with our wide spectrum of thoughts and emotions.
2.
Read
Then, after you’ve gotten to the core of your
thoughts and emotions, take some time reacquainting yourselves with what Jesus
says about the tough stuff of life. Open God’s Word. Read it. Together.
Start with John 16:33. Hear the words of Jesus.
Allow His words to provide much needed perspective on our sin-filled world.
Jesus tells us that we will have trouble. It’s not if
trouble will invade our lives, rather when
it will happen.
After Jesus gives us an honest assessment of our
situation, He offers us something more important—hope in Him! He has overcome
the doubt, pain, frustration, anger of life in a fallen world where gunmen kill
innocent people and where beatiful homes catch fire. Jesus has overcome all the
sin and death that we can fathom. And from His lips we hear, "But take heart!”
3. Pray
How can we “take heart”? Through prayer. We can
do it by a posture of submission to the One who has overcome. We can bow our
knee to our Lord. The Lord of Heaven and Earth. The sovereign God who we don’t
fully understand and comprehend, yet trust with every aspect of our lives.
We can “take heart” by bringing our collection of
messy thoughts, feelings, and emotions to Him. We can cry out to God in
frustration. We can whisper to Him from a heart of worship.
This is a picture of you and I living out our
faith in community. As we acknowledge the tough stuff of life, turn to God’s
Word for perpsective, and submit to Him in prayer.
God, in turn, helps us to begin to overcome the
things that rock our world.
