ARE YOU BURDENED WITH GRIEF?

Nothing stirs the heart of our God more than the soul that is overcome with grief. Grief is defined as “deep sorrow” or “sadness caused by extreme distress.” Notice the grief that lord Jesus experienced:

Isaiah 53:1-12:

Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? For he grows up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should be attracted to him.

He is despised and rejected by people; a man of suffering, and one who knew sickness. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he is despised and we did not respect him.

Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering, yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds, we are healed.

We all like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way, and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter and as a sheep that before its shearers are mute, so he did not open his mouth.

He was taken away by oppression and judgment; and who among his generation considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people? They made his grave with the wicked, but with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and no deceit was in his mouth.

Yet it pleased Yehovah to crush him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul a guilt offering, he will see his seed. He will prolong his days, and the pleasure of Yahweh will prosper in his hand.

After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself, and he will bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will give him a portion with the great, and he will divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was counted among the transgressors, yet he carried the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

Even in judgment, God grieves over his children. The Psalmist makes an incredible statement regarding Israel: “For their sake He remembered His covenant and relented according to the multitude of His mercies. He also made them be pitied by all those who carried them away captive” (Psalm 106:45-46). When God sees His children hurting, He not only grieves over them, He makes their enemies pity them!

Perhaps you are burdened with some sort of heavy grief. It could be over someone dear to you who is suffering, in trouble, or hurting. It could be a son or daughter who is backslidden, slowly sinking into the death of sin. Or it could be a loved one facing a severe, looming financial crisis. I say to all: Yehovah and the lord Jesus our Messiah is moved by your grief.

It is wonderful to have Jesus walking alongside us through our pain. When a blessing is on the way, there can be delays. Consider the woman who suffered from chronic hemorrhaging and touched the hem of Jesus’ garment for healing. For twelve years she had bled and she was literally dying a slow death. Luke, a physician, wrote that she “had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any” (Luke 8:43).

“[The woman] came … and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped … Jesus said, ‘Somebody touched me, for I perceived power going out from me’” (8:44-46). Jesus felt this woman’s pain and he met her need when she reached out to him!

When the suffering woman reached out and touched the man Jesus, merely making contact with the hem of his garment, she was instantly healed! The compassion of Jesus flowed out to her and made her whole.

Sadly, multitudes of people today are doing just what that woman did; run from place to place looking for answers. They explain their problems, again and again, hoping to find relief. All they want is for someone to stop their pain and suffering that makes their hearts heavy with grief.

If you are burdened with grief turn to Yehovah in fervent prayer and seek His help to deliver you from your grief and place in you His steadfast love that casts our all fear and grief. Even in grief, we can rejoice in our God and Father Yehovah knowing that He cares for us and will be a strong tower and sure comfort for all those who are His.

Notice Habakkuk: 3:17-19:

For though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit is in the vines, the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food, the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in Yehovah. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! Yehovah the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet and enables me to go up to high places.