Believing for Your Resurrection

The way we are saved for heaven sets the pattern for all of Gods helping, healing work in our lives down here. According to Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, we are saved by grace through faith. Faith is our part. Everything else is His. God is really good at His part. He doesn't call Himself the God of All Grace for nothing (1 Peter 5:10). Grace means that He gives us everything we need to get to heaven and to live a more heavenly life down here. Best of all, He even helps us with our part, if only we exercise enough faith to ask Him. Our part consists of trust and obedience. Both sides of that equation give us many reasons to ask for His help. This is important to understand because in some ways the second task of grief can be more difficult than the first.

If you're a Christian and so was your loved one, then the first task is relatively easy. Just refresh yourself as needed by feeding on the scriptures that give us the gospel's promise of a resurrected life in heaven. Then, simply keep your faith alive that they are safe and secure. You are torn to pieces because you miss them, not because you're in fear for their eternal destiny. So, if that's you, pause and give thanks to God that you can at least have this distant hope of seeing them again and this present blessing of not have to worry about them. This doesn't remove your pain, but it should remove your fears for them and any unpleasant thought that God is somehow your enemy. No! He's the One who rescued them from death and raised them into eternal joy.

Here, I must admit that the thought of June enjoying her time in heaven, was a bit troubling to me. I was in so much pain! How could she be happy? Well, you idiot, I told myself, She's happy because she sees that she can trust Jesus completely with how He's going to be helping you and the kids deal with this mess. In heaven, people have perfect confidence in both the Lord's love and in His powerful abilities. We don't. From earth's more benighted perspective, I looked at the same set of circumstances my busted-up life and broken heart and wanted to give up. How could my life ever become something I would want to live again?

Seeing this Clearly

That's when it hit me. Suddenly, I saw with absolute clarity that there are two resurrections the grieving need faith for believing. I had faith for her resurrection boatloads of it, especially once the prophetic visions started rolling in (see The Prophetic Backstory). What I didn't have was faith for my own. Oh, I knew I would get to heaven and see her then, but how could God raise me into a life in this life that felt like, well, life again? I not only had no faith for that, but I also had no vision for what it might possibly look like. Even worse, what could I do to help it along? I had no energy to spare. It took all my meager strength just to go from one duty to another, hoping to stay upright, but dead to all else. I had no great ideas either. I didn't have a clue how to get from where I was to where I might possibly one day want to be.

This is why I wrote at the beginning of this chapter that it is important to understand how God and faith work. It slowly dawned on me that if what I needed was a resurrection into this life, then it was going to be similar to how the resurrection into the next life works. We don't get to heaven by figuring out how to get there. We don't get there by our own effort or strength. We don't even get there by deserving it. All that is up to God and His gift of grace and best left in His capable Hands.

Ever since my conversion, I have trusted God that He could (and would) get me to heaven somehow. All I ever needed was His promise in order to have no worries on that score. In just the way, all I needed now was to trust Him that He knew how to resurrect me here, and I would be good to go. I prayed for His help to get me over my obstacles of unbelief, and He did. Prayer really is our best friend down here, because Jesus is our Best Friend and prayer connects us to the help He yearns to send us.

Eventually, I slowly accepted it that somewhere out there, there was a future and a hope, even for me in this life. The more tenaciously I held on to that hope, the easier it became to move forward. In fact, that hope gave me a genuine sense of forward movement. Waiting to die so you can go to heaven and be with your loved one is not the same thing as embarking on a new adventure in living for God. Please note that I had hope as hope alone, not as a definitive plan. It wasn't even the outline of a plan, much less a clear destination. It was just the hope that the Lord knew how to pull it off whatever it might be. Hope, pure hope, is all we need. It floats the heart when nothing else can.

Prayer

Dear Lord, I have to admit that this one stumps me at times. How can I ever want to have a life that doesn't include my loved one within it with me? And yet, You are the Resurrection and the Life. Nothing is impossible for You, though many things are difficult, still, for me to believe. This is one that I would like to believe if only You would help me. I cast down all doubt and unbelief about what You can do. You've said You know that You have good plans to give me a future and a life in this life. So, I choose by an act of my will to believe it with my whole heart, mind, and soul. Thank God that you haven't given up on me. Help me not to give up on You and what You can do.

Scripture

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 1 Peter 5:8-10 ESV