God’s Comfort in Grief: Bible Verses that Heal and Restore Hope

Excerpted from Removing the Sting of Death.

If we are not careful, we can define our lives by these kinds of moments when grief rules the hour.

In such cases, grief becomes a lifestyle, not a moment or even a season. But if I build an identity on what I have lost and if I become addicted to the care given by others in the place of proper self-care, I build habits that will at some point need to be repented of and replaced. Being addicted to affirmation is not evil. All infants have this as a way of life. They cry. We run to their aid. They express hunger. We feed them. They stay awake all night. It’s hard for us to sleep at all.

And as broken people, we need those who will attend to us in this way. But if that person is going to grow and mature from infancy to adulthood, they have to eventually take responsibility for themselves. Please note, maturity doesn’t mean I no longer need encouragement or affirmation. It just means that those things are like supplements to my diet, not the meal itself. They add to who I am and what I do. But they are not, in and of themselves, what defines or sustains me.

The pain brought on by loss is not bad, nor is it a sign of something done wrong. But if I allow it to affect my emotions where I no longer have hope or my thoughts where my identity is now defined by what I’m missing, I’m in trouble. Wrong thoughts are often innocent and random in the beginning, but they should pass quickly. Someone said, “We can’t stop a bird from flying over our heads, but we can stop it from building a nest in our hair.” Brilliant and well said. So many random things come to mind, especially when in pain. (A dear friend of mine says everyone in pain is a narcissist.) But we must have the determination and discernment to recognize what is destructive and keep from dwelling on it. If not, it will build a nest in our hair (influencing our thoughts, to undermine our identity).

When we give our time and energy to wrong thoughts, feeding our souls on them, they can become strongholds in and from which the enemy resides and works. The apostle Paul addressed this subject saying that strongholds, places of demonic habitation, are built through repeated thoughts raised up against the knowledge of God. (See 2 Corinthians 10:4-5.) It’s a lot easier to fall into a hole than it is to climb out. Guard your hearts from the lies that work to derail us from God’s intended destiny.

Allowing yourself to weep and mourn is healthy. Such feelings are normal and are not anti-spiritual or anti-faith. Even Jesus wept at Lazarus’s tomb, even though He knew He was about to raise him from the dead. If mourning was wrong, Jesus would not have taught us to “weep with those who weep.” He would have commanded us not to identify with people in their pain, telling us to rescue them from grief and make them stop weeping. Instead, He says, “Join them.”

The right kind of mourning (the kind that has hope) attracts the Holy Spirit into the situation, bringing comfort and healing to the heart. “But we do not want you to be uninformed…so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13 NASB1995).

It’s a tender time whenever He shows up. Valuing those moments with Him is vital, increasing their frequency. And we must not rush through them to try to quicken our healing. Enjoy the fact that He draws near.

Exposed By Words

Words reveal the heart. If we start making hopeless statements about our lives, or the lives of our families, following our loss, we are revealing that the sickness of the heart has already started. I’m referring to statements such as, “This is never going to work” or “Why does this always happen to me?” or “Why doesn’t God care about me?” The list is endless really. And we’ve all thought or said them. I’ve filled my heart with Scripture for so many years that this is not one of the areas I am most likely to fall in. It would be foolish to think or say I could not get this wrong, as meditating on wrong things long enough makes even an error look appealing. But I at least have an awareness of that cliff and intentionally stay far away from it.

One of my recent meditations was on two verses in Proverbs (a book I read from daily) that says:

A man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; from the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit (Proverbs 18:20-21 NKJV).

The book of Proverbs is filled and overflowing with wisdom on the importance and power of speech. It really wouldn’t be hard to write an entire book on this one subject from this one book in the Bible. Knowing that our words reveal our heart, it shouldn’t take us long to discover the condition of our hearts. First, it has to matter to us enough to ask the Holy Spirit for help and stay connected to the Scriptures continuously (John 15:7). And while I may feel weak because of loss and mourning, I can be assured of health by paying attention to my words.

This passage in Proverbs 18 says a man’s stomach will be satisfied by what he says. The stomach is where God’s medicine we call food is broken down and the nutrients are released to bring health to our whole person. Verse 20 states that our words affect that important process, dictating what is released throughout our whole self. It goes on in verse 21 to address the power of the tongue to bring life or death. Loving that truth positions us to benefit from this reality. Instead of being paranoid about getting this wrong, perhaps we should rejoice in the fact that we can have a positive effect on our overall well-being and intentionally embrace the privilege of speaking life and learn how to do it well. Because of the trauma that causes the grief, it’s not a surprise that people’s health is often compromised during this season. A good place to start is to be intentional about what we say.

It’s Time to Reign

Proverbs is a book vital to the Christian life in that it equips us to reign in life. Wisdom enables us to reign over the most difficult situations we face. We would be unwise to bypass our need for wisdom in the midst of loss, as wisdom doesn’t just affect the mind as though it were some intellectual aid that helps us to make good decisions for business or politics or education. Divine wisdom first affects the heart, the place of our greatest pain. Wisdom is born and nurtured in the fear of God, which is the surrendered heart to the only One with the right to rule our lives. In that place of trust is where the heart is healed.

I’m actually shocked by how often people will abort the miracle they are contending for with their words. Perhaps that’s why God made Zechariah mute until his son, John (the Baptist), was born. His unbelief seemed to shock the angel of the Lord. Perhaps he had been mourning his childless state for so long that it had prevented his heart from believing something good could happen. I’ve seen so many people resist God when the good news came. They were locked into mourning and just couldn’t believe it.

Sorrow is legal for the believer. Don’t pretend it isn’t there, nor that it is evil in and of itself. Sorrow shows us we’re alive and well in that we feel pain. If I can’t feel pain, I also won’t be able to feel love. Let sorrow draw you to Him. Literally rest in sorrow, but protect your mind from thoughts of hopelessness. Those will take you down. The Holy Spirit is our Helper and Comforter. Set aside time and ask Him for help and receive His comfort. Do this as often as you need to until you sense a shift in seasons. There is comfort in His presence and in His Word to help maintain hope. Both of these will be dealt with in a more expanded measure later in the book.

As It Appears to Me

Being able to mourn well is vital. Weeping, pain of the soul, even bewilderment is legal and plays an important role. Not knowing what is happening, not knowing the future, being con- fused about our own emotional condition gives us the perfect opportunity to develop the muscle of trust. This is of greater importance than any of us can possibly imagine. Each of these things is to make us less and less self-confident and is to drive us to Him. But the desire for a quick fix can be dangerous in dealing with pain.

We charismatics are unusually prone to this, as we believe in the instant miracle work of Christ. That anticipation of a quick invasion of God into a situation is not something I will apologize for. I’ve seen the and suddenly of God too many times to ignore the possibility. But the quick-fix mentality doesn’t lend itself to endurance, which is the other side of the coin. The com- fort of the Holy Spirit heals us, but also enables us to endure until the healing is completed. I cannot speed up the process. But I can slow it down.

Most of us do anything we can do to avoid pain. It is so debilitating. I have a bad habit of doing anything to avoid painful or even challenging moments. It usually delays the inevitable, making the situation worse. I once heard a psychologist say that in his opinion, a very large percentage of mental illness was caused by the efforts to avoid pain. That is a quite sobering statement.

The unwillingness to face pain and grieve well is problematic. In the absence of the quick fix working, people often indulge in wrong relationships, substance abuse, or other foolish investments of time. It provides a quick painkiller but does nothing to deal with the cause of the pain. While time doesn’t heal, in and of itself, it is necessary to face the many issues that come to the surface over time during loss. Time is needed to grieve well and to respond in a Kingdom manner.

Keep Yourself

Nothing of significance is ever completely dependent on us. Even our faith is a gift from God.

We are co-laborers with God, and He is the X-factor to all of our successes. Staying out of the self-destruction mode is not a self-righteous works program that we do for God. God is our strength. But I must lean on Him, depend on Him, and seek His face diligently. This really is much like the rest of our walk with Christ; there are certain things that will never happen in, to, and through us without our participation. We do play a vital role, even in our own healing.

There’s a great passage in Jude that illustrates this concept beautifully: “Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. …Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 1:21,24 NKJV). We are to make sure that we stay in a place of experiencing the love of God, mindful of what He says in His Word about His uncompromising love for us.

For me, this happens through times in His presence in worship, time in His Word meditating on and praying Scripture, and time in community with like-minded lovers of Jesus. For me, that is keeping myself in the love of God. But all of this must be done in rest. It’s not the typical spiritual works program that will get you out of trouble. Learning to rest is vital for healing.

A key verse for my life in the past ten years or so has been John 15:7 (NKJV), “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” In other words, “If My words abide in you, you can have influence on what happens on earth, and I will respond to and fulfill your requests.” This works for us also in the discovery of His love for us, which really is at the beginning of our journey: “For God so loved the world, that He gave…” (John 3:16 NKJV).

Meditating on these truths and promises helps us to live conscious of and in the felt energy of His love. The end result of this Jude passage is beautiful. He keeps us from falling. Our responsibility to keep ourselves in His love frees Him to keep us from failure. Keeping ourselves is to give ourselves to Him completely. And He protects well whatever He’s been given.

The thought that failure is inevitable is crazy and a lie. Rather, success, increase, blessing, and favor are inevitable. He’s a good, good Father.