Blessed Brokenness of Grief
BLESSED BROKENNESS - Part 2
Springcreek Church | Senior Pastor Keith Stewart
BLESSED BROKENNESS OF GRIEF - PART 2
You won’t live very long in this world before you will lose something that is precious to you. You may lose a mom, a dad, a grandparent, a sibling or a friend in death. You are going to lose opportunities, friendships, marriages, jobs, valuables, faith and sometimes even hope. As I’ve said many times over the years, in this broken world, “loss is inevitable, growth is optional.” But we can find comfort on the other side of a loss IF we allow ourselves to grieve. That is Christ’s promise and it also happens to be the second beatitude. I hope you can join us this weekend as we discover the healing path of grief for all the losses of life.
SERIES: BLESSED BROKENNESS
Go online and search the term #blessed and you’ll see a lot of vehicles, vacations, partying, and evidently, #blessed is also a code word for “take a selfie using duck lips.” But what strikes me about the way we define the blessed life is how absolutely incongruent it is with how Jesus described it. The beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount are the most extensive teaching Jesus ever did on what it means to be blessed. He described the blessed life as poverty, mourning, meekness, hunger and persecution – hardly the things we associate with blessings. Yet the Jesus’ way is the only true path to the blessings of God. Join us this weekend as we discover the secret to the blessed life.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. A paradox is by nature something that runs counter to popular opinion or the way we normally think of things. What other paradoxes are you familiar with in Scripture? How have you struggled with them? In what ways have you found them to be true?
2. Our society tends to go through life minimizing our pain and avoiding sorrow as much as possible. How does it do this? Have you ever done this? What was the result?
3. Can you share with the group the most difficult time of grieving you have experienced?
4. How has your Christian faith and your Christian friends be a help to you during times of grief?
5. Society tends to think grief work is something that should happen within about 3 weeks to 3 months when the reality is the time it takes to process a major loss is more likely between 3 months to 3 years. Why do you think most people don’t understand the time needed to grieve well? Have you ever felt rushed by others while trying to process a loss? Have you ever or are you presently processing a loss that occurred months ago?
6. How have you experienced God’s presence and strength in your grief?
7. Take some time to pray for one another, especially in regard to being fully in touch with reality, being patient with ourselves, asking also for a heightened awareness of God’s nearness and His touch in times of loss.Download and use the SPRINGCREEK CHURCH APP for interactive message notes, online giving, events, and so much more! Get all the info you need at your fingertips!
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