Let us run with endurance the purpose in grief and grief, and of course, grief exists all over the world. And one of the things that we find is we are a very lonely generation. I want to emphasize that, because in the day of the internet and cell phones, people are going more and more toward secrecy, rather than community.
And that certainly does not help us. I want to ask you a question. Have you been blessed as a result of the ministry of running to win? So, would you consider becoming what we call an endurance partner? Now, of course, you say, well, Pastor Lutzer, what is an endurance partner?
You need more info. So at the end of this broadcast, I'm going to be giving you that information. And I want you to listen carefully to the message, but also to pray and say, Lord, are you calling me to help this ministry as we get the message of Jesus Christ around the world?
For now, stay tuned. So you might ask the question, what qualifies you to talk about grief and loneliness? Well, as a pastor throughout the years, I've often observed bad grief and good grief. And I think that some of the things that I share are going to be very helpful to you. But then something else, I'm going to share with you a story of a man whose wife died nine months ago.
And I think that you will find his comments and what he has to say very fascinating. And then we're going to relate it to the Scriptures. And I believe that you are going to be given hope as a result of this time together. This is primarily directed to those of you who are grieving, not necessarily to those of you who are grieving because you've been told you have a terminal disease.
That would be for another time and another subject. I remember back in the 1970s reading Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's book entitled Death and Dying. And some of you might remember that she has five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then acceptance. And of course, that has to do with those of you who may have a terminal disease.
And I want to just encourage you by a word before we get to the actual topic of those of you who are grieving because of the loss of a loved one. I came across this, there are really three big C's that we must face. Well, there's cancer, there's corona. But think of what they cannot do. They are so limited that they cannot cripple love, they cannot shatter hope, they cannot corrode faith, they cannot eat away at our peace, they cannot destroy our confidence, they cannot kill friendships, they cannot shut out memories, they cannot silence courage, they cannot reduce eternal life, they cannot quench the spirit, they cannot lessen the power of the resurrection. I have frequently told sick people that there is no problem that you have that a good resurrection won't solve. Well, those are two of the C's, but the third C, as you might have already guessed, is Christ. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Well, now I want to begin by talking about grief specifically, and I'm going to discuss what I call bad grief.
And as I think about this, it falls into various categories, and I'll list those categories and perhaps give you an illustration or two of each. First of all, bad grief is driven by false guilt. I'm thinking, for example, of a woman who my parents knew, I have vague recollections of her. She convinced her husband to go to a concert one evening that he did not want to go to.
En route, they were in a car accident, and he was killed. She went to his grave for 14 years every morning to moan her loss, and to deal with the grief and the sense of guilt that she felt because she convinced him to go somewhere where he didn't want to go. My friend today, that is false guilt. That is not guilt driven by God. All of us have said to our mates, let's do something, and it could end in tragedy. People need to get beyond that. That's false guilt.
Let me give you another example that is even more poignant, really. A little girl says, Mommy, can I cross the street? And the mother thoughtlessly says yes, thinking they would do it together.
The little girl runs out into the middle of the street and is hit by a car and killed. I don't ever expect that mother to forget that incident. She will die with that memory. But at the same time, there comes a point where she has to get over that. Her intentions were good. All of us have made statements that could be misinterpreted, and she needs to recognize that she is not responsible.
As time goes by, she must move beyond that. The guilt that she feels is not guilt given by God. If you've seen grief that I think is bad grief because of the fact that there is false guilt, let me give you another kind.
It is driven by human worship. Now, that's a strong word. I actually changed it later to an unhealthy reverence. This is a woman whose husband was a professor, and he had many books and so she roped off his study. Nobody could go in it. You couldn't take a book out of it. Everything had to stay just the way it was when he died. To disturb it would be a sign of irreverence.
I don't agree with that at all. The other day, Rebecca said to me, what should I do with all of your sermon notes if you were to die? You have to understand that I've been preaching for 40 years, and I have these sermon notes in boxes. I said, Rebecca, tell my children that if they want to keep a few for their files, these are notes that their father used when he preached from the pulpit of Moody Church, but feel free to get rid of them. Burn them. And as far as my library is concerned, do whatever you want with the books.
Give them away. I don't want her to have an unhealthy reverence for my memory. You know, the Bible talks about the fact that we are like grass that comes, one generation comes and the other goes, and so we fade away and a new generation comes, and we just have to recognize that and help people to not be so attached to their loved ones that they need to keep what I consider to be human worship almost. Let me tell you the story of a man by the name of John. His wife died 15 or 20 years ago, and the dishes in the stove are still the dishes that were there when she died.
Rebecca and I were in his office one time, and I think we counted correctly 14 different pictures of his late wife. Let's not have such attachments that we can't move beyond these incidents and this grief. I think it's an unhealthy reverence for the person who has died. Let me quickly go on to another, and that is excessive self pity.
Let me introduce you to a woman by the name of Doris. She parks her Buick in the church parking lot and then goes into church, wipes her tears, sings her songs, goes home, cries all the way, and keeps saying to God over and over again, your grace is not sufficient. You know, God dealt with her in a prayer room with a number of women.
She recognized that she, of course, loved her husband very much, which is wonderful, but at the same time she was so filled with self pity, she couldn't move beyond it. There are things that we need to move beyond. Let me give you one other example, and it is the most gut wrenching, if I might put it that way.
It has to do with a lack of trust in God and his sovereignty. Perhaps you've heard me tell the story of a man maybe 40 years ago. I was speaking in another state here in the Midwest. He came to me later and I can still see him under that tree. He made such an impression on me, I've not forgotten it. He had a 15-year-old boy.
If I remember correctly, the boy committed suicide, at least the boy was dead. And he told me, if I get to heaven and find out that my son isn't there, I'm going to ask God to send me to hell so that I can be with him. I understand his agony. Let's not be quick to judge him. But you know something?
That is really wrong. First of all, in hell, I mean, this is terrifying. We don't even know if people are going to be together. But more than that, the Bible assures us that God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. I don't think God is going to come along with a handkerchief and then wipe our tears away. I think God is going to give us his perspective. And in such a way that we'll be comfortable and rejoice in his justice, in his righteousness, and we will praise him forever and be content with what he has done.
So take courage. There are times when all that we can do is to trust God, especially with unknown questions, or I should say questions that have no answers. I think those are examples of what I call bad grief. Now let's talk about good grief.
What is good grief? Well, good grief recognizes that grief is a transition. Remember in the Old Testament, they would grieve for 40 days, and then they'd have to move on. I'm not suggesting for a moment that in 40 days your grief is over. But there was a period of time of transition.
I understand that in the early days in America, what frequently happened is people had arm bands to show that they were grieving, and they'd have those on for a number of weeks or months. It was a sign that I'm in transition, and I'm going to move on. Now that moving on oftentimes is very difficult because our emotions fluctuate, don't they? One moment I'm told by those who have experienced a great deal of grief, you say to yourself, you know, I think things are getting better.
I can actually manage now. And the next day, the grief comes back, perhaps more powerfully than ever. And we should expect that. That's the nature of grief. You know, I was born on a farm, and we used to have what was known as a runaway. A runaway was when some horses were spirited, and they'd run off, and they would not respond to the rains.
And whenever a farmer had a runaway, we'd generally hear about it, town gossip, and we knew what that meant. The horses would have to run until they were totally exhausted, and then finally they were ready to trudge back home rather slowly. That's the way our emotions are. Sometimes they are simply uncontrollable, but eventually we become exhausted, and we end up back home. That kind of grief is normal grief, and I would put it into the category of good grief.
Someone says rain falls because the clouds can no longer handle the weight. Tears fall because the heart can no longer handle the pain. I'd say also that good grief is a grief that has hope. One day a woman here at the Moody Church came to see me because her husband had died unexpectedly. They were deeply in love. And she was contemplating suicide because she said, I can't live without him, and I want to be with him. That's what she told me. Now, this is what I told her. I said, I want to make a promise to you. You have one responsibility and only one responsibility, and that is to get up in the morning, put one foot ahead of the other, go through your day, and she had a job, so she had to go to work.
Go through your day, and then the next day do the very same thing over and over again. And then I think I told her in a year things would be different. I'm not sure exactly if I gave a period of time, but I gave her hope. And then I said these words. I said, if you do that, I promise you that someday the sun will shine again. I lost track of her, but she came back to the Moody Church, saw her a couple of years later, asked how she was doing, and she remembered what I had said. And she said, Pastor, the sun is shining. We as believers have to recognize that we give one another hope because we sorrow not as those who have no hope. Hang in there, and someday the sun is going to shine again. Let me say that good grief also gives us the opportunity to ponder our future. It is indeed a time of transition. Let me give you some quotes. Grief never ends, but it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay. It's not a sign of weakness or lack of faith. It is the price of love.
That really is true. Remember the shortest verse in the Bible? I remember in Sunday school when I was a boy, we used to say, I know a verse in the Bible. Well, the shortest verse in the Bible is John chapter 11, verse 35, Jesus wept.
But isn't it interesting? The chapter opens by saying, now Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Lazarus dies.
Jesus even knows what he intends to do, namely to raise him from the dead, and yet Jesus wept. It's the price of love. If you love, you will weep.
C.S. Lewis said these words, getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward. So good grief is grief that sees grief as a comma and not a period. Now what I'd like to do is to leave with you and share with you my friend Paul. Paul's wife died nine months ago, nine or ten months ago, and he's been emailing me, and he's given me permission to share with you some of his emails. It's the story of grief, and you're going to be greatly helped by the way in which he defines it, how he describes it, and then we're going to go to the Bible, and we're going to really find that there is hope. Now Paul's wife died. His wife's name was Kathy. He said it was about 20 months ago that her doctor took me aside and informed me that we should make the most of the upcoming year as she wouldn't make it to Christmas, and to treasure each moment knowing that every special thing we did would be the last time. And instead of allowing sadness to overrule, I should count it a blessing because many people don't get the opportunity of sharing life together before life comes to the end.
So he took his advice. Shortly after, in early January, by the way, she did make it to Christmas, but shortly after, in January, her body began to fail. She passed away at home on March 14. Just as she took her last breath, the large digital clock on her nightstand flipped to 828.
As I was holding Kathy and felt her soul depart, my daughter Stephanie said, Dad, look. Look at the clock. It's reading 828.
Romans 828. It's going to be all right. God is with us.
Mom is safely home with the Lord. No more cancer. No more MS. He continues, he says, grief is not my friend, but it's also not my enemy anymore.
At first it was. When it paid a visit, I knew exactly where it would strike and what to expect. But I no longer run from it, and I've begun to make my peace with it. Instead of running away from it, I've learned to seize the intensities of each visit as an opportunity to intensely thank God for the wonderful gift of Kathy that he has given to me. While Kathy and I spent a year together doing last times, I hadn't considered that I would spend this next year doing first times. These are the same things that we used to do together, but now I do them alone.
There are many of them because we've spent our entire life having lived where we were born. I shared with my children how difficult it is every day, and right now even as I'm constantly having to decide what to do with mom's personal things, simple things like taking down the Christmas tree. I'm feeling a little foolish too as I brought some of the grief on myself. I made some memorial ornaments for my children that had a picture of Kathy on them, and I hung them on my own tree so that her memory could be present with us as we let the grandkids open their gifts. I didn't think about the fact that I would have to take the tree down, and then I'd have to decide again what to do with another ornament that had to do with her.
He continues and says, her voice is still on the phone recorder. My children don't want me to remove it, so I don't, but it's hard for me to check messages and listen to her greeting. Now listen carefully, but I think the school of sorrow has three rooms, not two. The first two are grief and loneliness, and they are very easy to find, but the third is a well-concealed bunker.
I've only recently discovered the third one. I never knew that it was there, grief and then loneliness, and then I found a lower room, the bunker. Yes, there's a trap door in the room of loneliness. It was underneath the floorboards below the room where loneliness dwells was a hidden room that was stocked full of supplies, enough supplies for someone to hide for a very long time. The first two rooms, grief and loneliness, you know, eventually they become tolerable because I know what to expect, but the bunker is the most fearful.
It feels too safe. It's a great hiding place, and it's like a safe room. Let me tell you that Paul is a builder, and so he has actually designed, he says, some bunkers, some real bunkers.
He says these are well stocked with supplies, and access into them is bolted from the inside. My friend, I included that description of loneliness. I know the man who wrote those words.
He, of course, was deeply in love with his wife, and today she is in heaven, and he is alone here on earth, the power of loneliness. We here at Running to Win understand very clearly the need for community. And, you know, I'm holding in my hands a letter from someone who listens to our program in London, England. It's a reminder of the fact that the Ministry of Running to Win goes around the world. This person says, I've been listening to the Ministry of Running to Win in London.
One day after hearing about an episode that you had about the importance of community, I reached out to find a spiritual home and your staff helped me. Now, I mention that because testimonies like this are really your testimonies, because Running to Win is not the ministry of a man. It's not the ministry of an organization. It's not the ministry of a church. It is your ministry.
Ultimately, of course, it is God's ministry. Would you consider becoming what we call an endurance partner? Endurance partners are those who stand with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts, and of course you need info, so here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. I want you to visualize for a moment all of us holding hands together as we run toward the finish line, but I need to tell you that we cannot run the race on our end without our partners. So once again, pray about the possibility, investigate becoming an endurance partner, and I'm going to be giving you that contact info again. Go to rtwoffer.com. When you're there, click on the endurance partner button.
rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. I want to thank you in advance for helping us. I want to thank you in advance for your prayers, for uplifting us, because as our desire is that we might be able to preach to many people, introducing them to Christ, and then helping them navigate the difficulties and the challenges of the Christian life. And of course, the many blessings of the Christian life. Thanks again for helping us. But the hole in your heart will remain for the rest of your life. Next time, Pastor Lutzer concludes this talk on grief and loneliness. So make plans to join us, especially if you are in this dark valley yourself. Thanks for listening. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
