Spirit of Grief

Now when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, all the house of Israel mourned for Aaron thirty days. Numbers 20:29 (NKJV)

And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. So the days of weeping and mourning for Moses ended. Deuteronomy 34:8 (NKJV)

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! Isaiah 53:4 (New Living Translation, NLT) emphasis mine

We see from the accounts of the children of Israel in the wilderness that there was a specific time given for officially mourning the dead. They mourned 30 days for Aaron and for Moses. Extended periods of grieving were not observed. According to Isaiah, Jesus Himself bore our sorrows when He died on the cross. We are not to grieve endlessly.

God understands that when a loved one dies that the loss of their physical presence here on earth causes us emotional pain. God is love, and He understands that when people that we love die we miss them. To say that we do not miss them would be to disregard their lives and what they’ve meant to us. God understands our grief. According to most Bible scholars, it is assumed that Jesus’ earthly stepfather, Joseph, died before Jesus did. If that is true, Jesus Himself had to deal with the loss of a loved one, and He understands the pain of such a loss.

The problem is not with grieving. The problem comes when we give into a spirit of grief and refuse to be comforted. The devil would love to steal our joy and make us miserable. He wants to use the loss of a loved one to throw us into deep despair. His goal is remove our hope and desire to live. On the other hand, God’s goal is to give us abundant life, which includes bouncing back after the loss of someone we hold dear.

While God uses people to love us and encourage us, our real source of love, joy, comfort, and happiness is supposed to be the Lord, not people. Once we have mourned the loss of someone we love, we are supposed to pick up and move on with our lives, finding strength in the Lord. We don’t have to forget them, but we have to resume looking to the future. Living in the past is not healthy.

After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying: “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Joshua 1:1-2 (NKJV)

God did not allow the Israelites to spend an excessive time mourning Moses. He told Joshua to get up and get going into what He had for them in the Promised Land. The nation of Israel had to stop grieving and look to the future.

In the same way, we must move on and do what God has called us to do. Our loved ones who have graduated to heaven are moving on with what God has for them there. They would not want us holding onto to the heartache and grief associated with their death. Instead, we can look ahead with anticipation to the great reunion that awaits us when we cross the finish line and join them there. Don’t give in to a spirit of grief, but move ahead with the joy of knowing you’ll see them again.