JourneyCreative

For day 4 of our 7 day realignment I want everyone to focus on the word Lament. Some of you may know this word well, some may have seen it somewhere in the Bible, and some may not know it at all. Lament can be defined as a “passionate expression of sorrow.” It can also be described as just “mourning.” My favorite way it is described though is “crying out to God.”

I think often times the world of Christianity is flood with phrases like “choose joy” or “be happy cause God has the victory.” Although that statement is completely true, it is not exactly biblical to ignore your emotions. It’s not biblical to shove down feelings and put on this facade that everything is okay when actually you are experiencing deep grief.

When God created us He gave us 5 senses along with the ability to feel emotionally and the opportunity to express those emotions in so many ways. Language, song, bodily movement, etc. I believe that God created us with such complexity because He is bigger than the English language. There is no way that we can fully experience God through just words in our native tongue. We experience Him through smell, touch, hearing, seeing, feeling (physically and emotionally). Yes, Joy has a large role in the Christian faith due to the circumstances we have been given. We have a great high priest who came down to earth to be crucified for our transgressions so He could conquer death and overcome hell so that we may not perish but have eternal life. Now that is something to be overcome with great joy and happiness. But, God gave us more emotions than just happiness. So today, let’s talk about biblical grief.

Not to push an a fresh wound, but to hopefully allow Gods light to shine; our community experienced a painstaking loss this week. Jake was a large beam of hope in this community and I’m sure it affected those of you who knew him deeply to hear of his passing. The Lord bringing home Lisa Deringer was incredibly painful and confusing. Along with that, we have had a string of misfortunes and tragedies strike our community over the past year and a half. The cherry on top is a global pandemic that has taken most by surprise and affected every single person. The situation we find ourselves in today is probably more than just a bummer and I guarantee that many reading this are experiencing a deep amount of grief in this season. So what is a Christian supposed to do in times like this. Choose joy and smile your way through it? Honestly, no. Lament is a biblical discipline that can be found even in the ministry of Jesus. We even find it in the shortest verse of the Bible. “Jesus wept.”

If we go to that story we see Jesus essentially let his friend Lazarus die. Jesus delayed coming onto the scene early enough to save Lazarus. He allowed the death to happen. When He came He saw the mourners and talked with those grieving and just like Jesus, He empathizes and feels their pain with them. He lamented. He mourned the loss of this life. He also grieved the fact that He was going to put Lazarus back on this side Heaven. Many scholars believed He also cried because He knew this would be the final straw that would lead Him to the cross where He would feel the full weight of the wrath of God on Him alone.

Jesus knew that He was going to raise Lazarus back from the dead. He knew that Lazarus was going to be reunited with his loved ones. Jesus knew when he went to pray on the mountain that He was about to free all of mankind from the grips of death, but yet we see Him grieve and stress to the point of sweating blood. The spiritual discipline of Lamenting allows us to feel the full range of emotions that God has given us in the way God created them to be felt. These emotions we have were created to be felt with God. To bring us to God. Reading the psalms you feel the rollercoaster of the authors emotions. High highs and low lows. But ultimately, the expressions in the psalms were all worship. They were all in order to worship the father, to get to know the father, and come back to the garden of eden where man was to stand unhidden with an unhidden God.

God doesn’t want your fake it til you make it. God doesnt want your conjured emotions. He wants your full self. He wants your anger, pain, joy, lust, etc. He is a big boy, I dare say He can handle any emotion you could ever throw at Him. He wants you to bring it to Him first, so He can guide that passion. So He can change and mold it into something glorious. Something righteous.

In this season, do not push down your grieving and mourning. Do not replace it with this facades that cannot build. Build the Kingdom of God by mourning with those who mourn. Deeply grieving the losses of this earth. Sitting with those that grieve and weeping with them. Then, once you have brought all of that to God, allow Him to show you how to use it. Allow Him to be the sculptor. Because deep grief without Father God could turn into depression. Fierce desire gone mad alone turns into lust. Blind joy turns into a hollow body with no foundation to stand on. But, the emotions that God created experienced intimately with God, those are turned into vehicles of action for the Kingdom. So call those who are hurting and let them know you are hurting with them. Show them the empathy of our Father. Share grief with those that grieve. Not over Facebook because the drive thru got your order wrong. Not complaining over someone cutting you off. But with other brothers and sisters together, lamenting this broken world together in order to gain fresh perspective.

To be honest, as we lament we see the gloriousness of God. We see even greater the victory of Jesus. We draw close to the kingdom and draw from a greater well of Joy. Because we have done the work together to dig that well. When we have seen God raise bodies from the valley of dry bones, we can rejoice even more in the land of the living where we are to speak of this glorious King. I pray that this is not a Debbie downer moment, but instead a fresh perspective on emotions and feeling. An opportunity to greater see the Lord and trust Him. I may have sneakily written this today to hopefully allow you to develop deeper intimacy with God as we read yesterday. To give you an opportunity to trust Him more. Intimacy can not be built entirely off romantic dinners and reality show love, but instead it is built with the hard conversations in the trenches and the hard times together.

If you missed yesterdays post I will give a short recap of what this 7 day realignment is; I wanted us as a family to walk through some scripture together so that we may hopefully make much of Jesus in this season where the world is desperately searching for hope. It is our calling as a creative team to lift the name of Jesus high to a world that is searching through the darkness. Our calling goes beyond an experience on Sundays and our respective giftings in music/production/communications. Sometimes I need a daily reminder that I can make much of Jesus without a guitar in my hands. The enemy will try to constrain us in anyway possible, even with making us think that our talents are the only way we can glorify God. But the truth is, even before God gave us our giftings, He gave us the ability to glorify His name.

When God created us, He created every person with the ability to worship Him and glorify Him. We see this in some scripture:

"I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations."
Jeremiah 1:5

Before we came out of the womb we were already appointed as a prophet. We were anointed to proclaim the gloriousness of God. Here is the kicker though, I believe it starts with our thoughts. We must start thinking like anointed prophets. Instead of having regurgitated opinions of popular news channels, freaking out over the lack of toilet paper, or judging how others are handling this pandemic; we instead look to heaven to recognize the sovereignty of God in hopes that we may build the kingdom of God as the strongholds of the enemy are on the ropes.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
Romans 12:2

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Colossians 3:1-4

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7

I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, And will glorify Your name forever. Psal, 86:12

We cannot let what is happening today change our mindsets on who we are as children of God or what we are to do as the people of God. This pandemic can physically change the situation of how we do things, but it does not change the mission or reason we do things. We are set on this earth to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Although we do not physically meet in the building, God has given us the opportunity to still have church over the internet. What was once said to be the death of social skills is now the way we communicate. What was once deemed the death of a generation is now the main conduit the church uses to proclaim hope. What the enemy may have meant for evil, is now the great weapon of good. But, as our social media presence grows and our voices via the inter webs grow we have to realize what scripture says. Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” shows us that how we speak in times like this make all the difference. We as the church have a light to shine in the darkness. So speak the gloriousness of God. Speak the goodness of God. Speak of heavenly things. I challenge everyone on our Creative team to post what God is doing in their lives or what goodness of God is shining in these times.