In a Season of Loss, Release Your Grief

By Rick Warren

“Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge” (Psalm 62:8 NLT).

Tragedy always produces strong emotions—anger, fear, depression, worry, and sometimes guilt. These feelings can scare us, and we often don’t know what to do with them. When we have experienced a major loss, these enormous feelings bubble up within us. If we don’t deal with them now, it will take us far longer to recover.

Some people never directly deal with grief in life. They stuff it. They push it down. They pretend it’s not there. They act like it doesn’t exist. And that’s why they’re still struggling with emotional stress from losses that occurred 20 or 30 years earlier.

There’s a myth that says God wants you to walk around with a smile on your face all the time saying, “Praise the Lord!” The Bible doesn’t say that anywhere.

In fact, Jesus taught the exact opposite. In Matthew 5:4, he says, “God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (NLT). It’s okay to grieve. When people are Christians, we know they will go on to heaven when they die, so we need not grieve like the world. Our grief after a loss can be different. We grieve because we’re going to miss them, but we can also be at peace because we know they are with God.

What do you do with your feelings? You don’t repress them or stuff them deep inside you. You release them—you give them to God. You cry out, “God, I’m hurt! I’m grieving! This is a tough one to take.” If you want a good example of this, read through the book of Psalms, where many times David spills his guts and says, “God, I’m in a tough time right now. I am really, really hurting.” You cry out to God, just like David did.

If you are going through a loss right now, please understand that if you don’t release your grief, it will pour out eventually. Feelings that are pushed down fester, and eventually they explode in a much worse situation.

Release your grief first so that God can begin to heal your heart.

PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick

For more Daily Hope with Rick Warren, please visit pastorrick.com!

Want to discover the keys to living a blessed life?

Most people want to be blessed by God and that’s why we’d love to send you Rick Warren’s 8-message teaching series, Keys to a Blessed Life. It’s full of God’s promises to help you experience the abundant blessings of God.

You’ll be encouraged by messages that include:

• It Depends on Who You Depend On
• How God Blesses Broken Hearts
• The Strength of Gentleness
• Why You Need to Stay Hungry
• How to Reconcile a Relationship . . . and more!

The 8-message Keys to a Blessed Life audio series is our thanks for your gift today to help reach more people with the certain hope they can only find in Jesus Christ.

*The USA IRS code permits you to deduct the amount of your financial gift to Daily Hope that exceeds the fair market value of materials you received from Daily Hope.

This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

You can listen to Rick Warren on OnePlace.com.