A wonderfully loving, creative, and generous woman who loves God lost her husband many years ago, but in some respects, she is still a grieving widow. She said to me, “He was my life!” She made this statement with so much pain in her voice that it was as if he had passed away yesterday. Hearing her speak gave me a glimpse of her wounded heart, and I was so shaken by our encounter that I had to still my own mind and heart and take it all to the Lord in prayer. She reminded me of the many beloved daughters of God that have been in mourning a very long time.
Many of us have made our very lives a monument of pain and suffering because the person we loved so much either broke our hearts or is no longer in the earth. We’ve lived through incredible loss and devastation, and it hit us so hard that it stopped us in our tracks. This happened in our past, but we haven’t turned away or didn’t walk away from all that pain. Like Lot’s wife, we stayed with it, and now we carry it everywhere that we go. We’re weighted down by it.
There is no doubt that emotional pain, heartbreak, and loss can be a mountain, but it is one we must climb, reach the top, and triumph over. Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross so that we would not stand at the bottom of the mountain, looking at what seems to be an insurmountable height. Instead, we are to have faith in what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. We must not see any person as someone we can’t live without, because the Lord should be our everything. Acts 17:28(KJV) declares, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being.” Because of what God has accomplished for us through Jesus Christ, you and I can live in the wholeness and joy that he has given us.
We were all in a pitiful state when we first came to God seeking His salvation. We were weary, wounded, and sad, but He gives us rest. We enter into God’s rest by having faith in His strength, love, and power; and by having faith that He has shared His strength, love, and power with us through Jesus Christ. We must understand that it is impossible to be defeated when we have faith in Jesus Christ and live through him. If we think any other way than ‘victory’, we are robbing ourselves of the life God wants us to have, and we are robbing Him of the glory He should receive over our continual triumphs.
Emotional and psychological darkness is very unsettling, but spiritual darkness is catastrophic. Spiritual darkness leaves us without an anchor, and in a perpetual state of falling. We’re so disoriented that we can’t get a hold on anything, and what’s worse, we can’t see our way forward. This makes us feel lost, anxious, and insecure. In this condition, we’re susceptible to listening to what the enemy whispers in our ears, like Eve did when the devil planted the seed of doubt in her mind. These feelings and emotions of powerlessness makes us feel like God is far away, but He is never far from us.
In our darkest hour, we must choose God. Many people don’t know what this means. They will tell you that they are choosing Him every day, but their hearts tell a different story. When we choose God, we are more joyful to be His child than we are sad about the losses or heartbreaks we have experienced. Our Heavenly Father created us! He knows us through and through, and He would never ignore our pain. He knows that life can be painful, but we must remember that He is life itself. He is the medicine for what ails us. He wants to heal our deep aches and sorrows, and we should let Him.
Acts 17:25-27(NLT) is an extraordinarily powerful passage. It says, “25 and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. 26 From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries. 27 “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.” To really allow this passage to sink in our hearts, we must remind ourselves to digest it as the meat it is. This isn’t a bunch of facts fed to us by systems of the world. This is God’s truth, and it cannot be disputed in any way.
As diligent followers of Christ, you and I must always ask ourselves if we are really trusting God the way He deserves to be trusted, because we can’t have a half-hearted faith. When it comes to God’s truth, our faith must be the fully persuaded kind.
We’re very used to living our lives based on facts because that is what the world does. But God’s Word goes beyond the definition of a fact. A fact is something we think may be true, but as information changes, facts will change as well. Scientist discover things all the time. They publicize their findings, and the world believes the information because the scientist believe they have enough evidence to prove they are right. As time progresses, they may discover that what they thought they knew wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg, and there is infinitely more to be discovered. This isn’t the case with God’s Word.
When our Creator says something, we have the definitive authority on the subject. No more needs to be said, because if God says it, then it must be so. God’s Word is the truth! It is true all the time, and God’s Word never changes because He doesn’t change! His Word is the foundation on which life itself rests. He tells us in Acts 17:25 that He alone satisfies every need. There can be no speculation, opinions, or assumptions about this. We must believe that God will take care of us, He will heal us, and He will restore our joy.
The passage goes on to tell us that God created all the nations of the world from one man, Adam. This is how magnificently brilliant God is! He decided long before we were born that we would come to this earth, and He appointed the exact time and place of our births. He left nothing to chance, and there is nothing that you and I have endured that the Lord didn’t already know about. So, it’s our destiny to take our burdens to Him and to leave them there.
Acts 17:27 gives us the icing on the cake. It tells us that the reason God created all the nations throughout the entire earth is so each of us would seek after Him. This is the heart of God. We must understand this very clearly. Human beings only seek when they have determined that something or someone is worthy to be sought. A good man seeks a wife because he recognizes that a good wife is worthy of his effort to seek her out. This is why it is so extremely important that we are putting God in His rightful place of honor in our lives. If we grieve continually over what we’ve lost, there is no room to celebrate the reality of what we have in Christ. Our love for God and our faith in Him must be higher than our grief, sorrow, and broken hearts.
It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. We must walk through God’s process of deliverance to get to the other side of our pain, and He holds our hands every step of the way. We must trust that victory and joy is His goal for us, and that there isn’t anything He cannot handle and make better. Our faith must be fully invested in this. His purpose is that we will seek after HIM, and nothing or no one else. We must keep groping for Him, feeling our way towards His presence. This demonstrates that we understand who He is and that He is worthy to be sought. He is our Rescuer and Deliverer, and we must be willing to turn in the opposite direction of our pain so that we walk through the door of all that God has promised. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Walk Through It!” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!