Six Ways God Helps You Grieve

By Rick Warren

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and he saves those whose spirits have been crushed” (Psalm 34:18 NCV).

Every one of us will experience loss in life, so how does God heal a broken heart? You don’t get over a loss. You can’t go under it; you can’t go around it. You’ve got to go through the grief. And if you’re scared to express emotion and refuse to go through it, that’s where you get stuck.

But how do you get unstuck? You let God help you. Here are six ways God blesses a broken heart.

1. God draws you close to himself.

Psalm 34:18 says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and he saves those whose spirits have been crushed” (NCV). When you grieve, you may feel like God is a million miles away. But what you feel and what’s real are not always the same thing. God isn’t a million miles away. In fact, he’s never been any closer.

2. God grieves with you.

The Bible tells us that Jesus was “a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief” (Isaiah 53:3 NLT). When you come to Jesus with your grief, he knows what you’re talking about, and he understands your pain. God is a sympathetic. He’s not aloof. He’s not apathetic. He’s not standing on the sidelines. He grieves with you.

3. God gives you a church family for support.

We’re meant to grieve in community. Healing comes in groups. Healing comes in the church. Healing comes in community. We’re better together!

“In Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others . . . Be devoted to each other like a loving family . . . Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:5, 10, 15 NIV/GW/NIV).

4. God uses grief to help you grow.

God uses grief and even pain to help you become more like Christ, and he does it in three ways:

God uses pain to get your attention (Proverbs 20:30), he brings good out of bad (Romans 8:28), and he prepares you for eternity (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).

5. God gives you the hope of heaven.

There are many people who grieve without hope. Your life on this earth is short, but if you believe in Jesus Christ and trust him for your salvation, then you have the hope of spending eternity in heaven with God, and that hope will sustain you through your time of loss. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, “We don’t want you to be ignorant about those who have died. We don’t want you to grieve like other people who have no hope” (GW).

6. God uses your pain to help others.

This is called redemptive pain; it is the highest and best use of the pain you go through. God does not want you to waste a hurt. “[God] comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us” (2 Corinthians 1:4 NLT).

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

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