God’s Healing for Life’s Losses:
How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting
Post 16: Making Room for God
How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting
Post 16: Making Room for God
What about you? Yesterday we explored how we can journey with others helping them to move from works to crying out to God in total dependence. But what about your path from bargaining, works, and self-sufficiency to vulnerable trust through humbly crying out to God?
Whether you are reflecting on your past suffering or experiencing current grief, here are a few suggestions and questions. I’ve designed them to help you to move from works to cry— faith-based plea for mobilization in which I humbly ask God for help based upon my admission that I can’t survive without Him.
Don’t try to address every suggestion. Pick a couple that connect with you.
My Crying Out to God Journey
1. As you reflect on your response to your loss, do you see any evidence of bargaining and works—of trying to get God to relent and to be good to you by being good? If so, where do you think this mindset comes from? And how could you begin to shift from works to crying out to God?
2. Crying out to God is like the adage in AA, “Hello, my name is Bob and I am in desperate need for help.” What will it be like for you to cry out to God, “Hello, my name is ______ and I desperately need you God”?
3. Why do you think it is so hard for us to admit to God that we can’t survive without Him?
4. Picture yourself, and perhaps do this now, reaching up to God, open palms, pleading eyes, asking God to mobilize His mercy on your behalf.
5. For me, crying out has sounded something like this. “God, I’m confused. I’m scared. Everything I trusted in is gone. I used to think that if I only prayed hard enough and worked long enough, that eventually everything I longed for would come true in this life. But now I know that’s a lie. So what is true? What have You really promised? What can I count on? I can’t count on myself. Father, I want to count on You. Don’t let me down. Rescue me. Help me. Save me.”
What might your cry sound like for you today?
6. Read the following verses: Psalm 56:8; Psalm 72:12; Psalm 34:17-18. Write your own personalized paraphrase of their message for your grieving.
7. Crying empties us so there is more room in us for God. David wept until he had no strength left, but then he found strength in the LORD (1 Samuel 30:6). Invite God in; make room for Him today in your grief.
8. God uses suffering to gain our attention. Crying out to Him is your admission that God has your attention, that God has you. Does He have you? Your pain? Your grief? Your dependence?
9. Here are a few cry trialogues. Pick one or two to explore personally.
“How could your pain cause you to cry out to Christ for help, love, strength, joy, peace, deliverance?”
“As in Psalm 13, how could your situation cause you to cry out to God for help and strength?”
“If you were to write a Psalm 72 or 73 (Psalms of crying out to God), how would it sound? What would you write?”
“What would it be like for you to believe that God collect your tears in His bottle?”
“Psalm 34:17-18 teaches that God’s good heart goes out especially to the humble needy. How could you apply this truth in your life now?”
“What’s it like when God seems to rush to your side when you cry?”
What Next? What Now?
So what’s next? You’ve been candid with yourself. You’ve complained and lamented to God. You’ve cried out to God. Now what?
For the world, the fourth “stage” is depression.
What Christian “stage” contrasts with that?
That’s our topic for tomorrow.
Whether you are reflecting on your past suffering or experiencing current grief, here are a few suggestions and questions. I’ve designed them to help you to move from works to cry— faith-based plea for mobilization in which I humbly ask God for help based upon my admission that I can’t survive without Him.
Don’t try to address every suggestion. Pick a couple that connect with you.
My Crying Out to God Journey
1. As you reflect on your response to your loss, do you see any evidence of bargaining and works—of trying to get God to relent and to be good to you by being good? If so, where do you think this mindset comes from? And how could you begin to shift from works to crying out to God?
2. Crying out to God is like the adage in AA, “Hello, my name is Bob and I am in desperate need for help.” What will it be like for you to cry out to God, “Hello, my name is ______ and I desperately need you God”?
3. Why do you think it is so hard for us to admit to God that we can’t survive without Him?
4. Picture yourself, and perhaps do this now, reaching up to God, open palms, pleading eyes, asking God to mobilize His mercy on your behalf.
5. For me, crying out has sounded something like this. “God, I’m confused. I’m scared. Everything I trusted in is gone. I used to think that if I only prayed hard enough and worked long enough, that eventually everything I longed for would come true in this life. But now I know that’s a lie. So what is true? What have You really promised? What can I count on? I can’t count on myself. Father, I want to count on You. Don’t let me down. Rescue me. Help me. Save me.”
What might your cry sound like for you today?
6. Read the following verses: Psalm 56:8; Psalm 72:12; Psalm 34:17-18. Write your own personalized paraphrase of their message for your grieving.
7. Crying empties us so there is more room in us for God. David wept until he had no strength left, but then he found strength in the LORD (1 Samuel 30:6). Invite God in; make room for Him today in your grief.
8. God uses suffering to gain our attention. Crying out to Him is your admission that God has your attention, that God has you. Does He have you? Your pain? Your grief? Your dependence?
9. Here are a few cry trialogues. Pick one or two to explore personally.
“How could your pain cause you to cry out to Christ for help, love, strength, joy, peace, deliverance?”
“As in Psalm 13, how could your situation cause you to cry out to God for help and strength?”
“If you were to write a Psalm 72 or 73 (Psalms of crying out to God), how would it sound? What would you write?”
“What would it be like for you to believe that God collect your tears in His bottle?”
“Psalm 34:17-18 teaches that God’s good heart goes out especially to the humble needy. How could you apply this truth in your life now?”
“What’s it like when God seems to rush to your side when you cry?”
What Next? What Now?
So what’s next? You’ve been candid with yourself. You’ve complained and lamented to God. You’ve cried out to God. Now what?
For the world, the fourth “stage” is depression.
What Christian “stage” contrasts with that?
That’s our topic for tomorrow.
1 comment:
Oh yum! Can't wait for tomorrow! I have found it necessary to focus on the true meaning of the word grace, not the standard "unmerited favor" definition in order to keep my "I can do this myself" attitudes in check. When I focus on the unmerited part it makes me want to try to earn it, to be good enough and whoops there I go again focusing on what I can do to heal myself instead of the power of the Great Healer. I need God. I need His grace as Biblically defined.... Grace is defined in Scripture as something that teaches us how to live! Doesn’t sound like the traditional definition of grace? It is the Scriptural definition. Titus 2:11-12, "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12)Teaching us.... Strong’s (#5485) defines grace as "the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life." I am constantly battling my own strong will to influence my heart instead of the emptying myself out, as you mention by crying to God. It does take a lot of humility for me to just shut my own mouth and beg for help. Lamenting and crying has helped focus me on Him and allowed me to accept his teaching/grace into the deepest parts of my soul. And though it makes me remember and be sad; it humbles me and I am truly satisfied.
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