Send Grief and Pain

A friend, Brian Reed, has a worship song that he did a few years back called More Love To Thee. One of the verses in the song says:

Let sorrow do its work - send grief and pain,
Sweet are thy messengers - sweet their refrain,
When they can sing with me -
More love oh Christ to thee!

In the midst of all the successful outreaches in evangelism we have had, the wonderful times of fellowship and learning on Sunday nights, the starting of new cell groups, and the joy of seeing families grow in the church we are constantly assailed by sorrow, grief, and pain. In the midst of all the growth is the fertilizer of trials and tribulations.

One such trial is what Tina Roux and Sara Breedlove are both going through respectively. Both of these women have grandparents that are deathly ill, yet do not know Christ as the Lord of their life, and have never repented of their sins. The enemy of our soul would throw in our faces our lack of power to overcome these things and try to press us into believing that God is to blame and is a failure.

The enemy through the distortion of grief and pain would like to have used this same tactic on our Lord and Savior in the garden of Gethsemane. Read below the following account from Mark 14.

Mark 14:32-36 (ESV)
³² And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray. ”³³ And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. ³⁴ And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” ³⁵ And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. ³⁶ And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.

But as we can clearly see here in this passage of scripture and knowing the account of Christ on the Cross, his death, burial, and resurrection - then we know that actually what the enemy would try to distort was actually something that God would use for his ultimate purposes in our lives. As Jesus was overcome with grief and pain, his soul so sorrowful to the point that he could just die, he didn't turn from God. No, he rather turned to God.

Each of us has sorrow in our lives, even overwhelming sorrow. But we should welcome these things when they come and do as the apostle James instructed when he said, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds." (James 1:2) Because we know that when our faith is sorely tested by trials of grief and sorrow that those who are truly of God's flock will not turn their back and run from the Father, but rather we will fling ourselves headlong into his waiting arms, and then the verse from the song becomes the cry of our heart.

Let sorrow do its work -send greif and pain,
Sweet are thy messengers - sweet their refrain,
When they can sing with me -
More love oh Christ to thee!

And then when sorrow has done its work it will help us to cry out to him with more love, more glory, more praise and adoration unto thee! More love, more honor, more worship of the King of Kings, more love to thee! I am going through a trial right now as we strive to advance God's Kingdom in Clarksville and the surrounding area. As we reach out to new people with the gospel we seem to sometimes lose old friends. This is something that grieves my heart, but I know that I can either let it crush me to the point of despair where I just quit, or I can throw myself into the arms of the waiting Savior, and cry out as he did Abba, Father! All things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me if it be your will. But not my will be done, rather your will be done in my life. So what is the trial you are going through right now?