How To Deal With Grief And Loss - Part 7 by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

You Cannot Be Released from Pain You Are Still Holding On To

The previous point established that the way you grieve or mourn says a lot about your belief and faith in Christ. Now: you cannot be released from a pain you are still holding on to.

Holding on to pain is like gripping a spike ball — you wonder why you are pierced and bleeding, but the answer is simple: you have to release it to feel relief.

Many people, when it comes to pain, are not willing to give themselves an opportunity to move on. This does not mean putting the person behind. It means being in touch with the reality of life. People will die. Every human being will die. Even God, in his humanness, tasted death. This is just life.

There is a way to live with the memory of a lost loved one — not to trigger pain, but in remembrance of how they encouraged, how they inspired, and what they truly meant to you. A better way to honour someone is through celebration, not through perpetual sadness. The goal is not to forbid grief, but to refuse to let grief become your permanent residence.

Stop the "What If" Cycle

Moving forward means stopping the self-blame statements that keep you anchored to pain:

• "What if I prayed more?" — Lazarus was raised from the dead, yet he still died eventually. Praying more or less does not change what God permits. God is not so mean that he would let someone die simply because you did not pray enough.
• "What if I was there at that moment?" — People are human beings. They go out. You cannot carry the weight of their death on your conscience for choices that were theirs to make.
• "What if my pastor had picked the call?" — This loads guilt onto another person and onto God in an unhealthy way.
• "What if God doesn't like me?" — The offense most atheists have with God is not intellectual. It is emotional.
• "What if there is no God?" — This extreme is a reaction born out of pain, not reasoned conclusion.

The Case of John the Baptist

John the Baptist baptized Jesus and declared twice in John 1, "Behold the Lamb of God that has come to take away the sins of the world." When Jesus did not come to release him from prison, John sent his disciples to ask: "Are you the Messiah, or should we look for another?"

In other words, John the Baptist was offended because the Saviour, in his view, was not saving him.

What John did not understand is that Jesus did not come to give him a partial, temporary release. The mission of Christ was to break the power of sin and death over all mankind — not a quick fix, but a glorified, incorruptible resurrection. It is not just deliverance from one moment of pain. It is the complete conquest of death itself.

Jesus' answer to John was: tell him the blind see, the lame walk, souls are being saved. In other words — because you are not experiencing a testimony does not mean God is not working. Others are experiencing testimonies, and those testimonies are sufficient to validate that he is God and that he cares.

Do not say God doesn't heal because he didn't heal your loved one. God heals because he heals people.

The Right Mindset: Favour Is Broader Than You Can See

Faith requires seeing favour even when it is hidden. Consider this: you may have lost your mother, yet how many things has God kept you from — things you will never know about?

There is a difference between being delivered from something and being kept from something. Being kept from something means you will not know what God did, but he did it for you. Perhaps that flat tyre on the road was not inconvenience — perhaps 20 miles ahead there was an accident waiting, and God stopped you in your tracks.

Some people make 9-month wedding plans. Some make 20- and 30-year plans for their children. Those plans come to pass and they take it for granted. The truth is: waking up this morning was not ordinary.

The "what ifs" will not help at all. Let them go.

Mourning Can Steal Living from You

Do not miss the lesson that death is teaching. The lesson is this: life is about living for Jesus, pleasing him, and enjoying every moment with loved ones while you are here on earth.

Somebody died — and then you begin dying while still living. That is not the response death calls for. You want to experience life, and part of the experience is pain. But pain is not meant to consume your existence.

Do not let mourning steal living from you.