Safe Passage
October 14, 2024
The capacity to grieve
September 19, 2018
"Arise, cry aloud in the night at the beginning of the night watches; pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord; lift up your hands to Him for the life of your little ones who are faint because of hunger at the head of every street." - LAMENTATIONS 2:19
The heart that has lost its capacity for grief is like a limb that can feel no pain. The heart that cannot grieve cannot be healed nor will it desire to heal others, for it does not understand their hurt. The heart that cannot grieve is limited in its praying, squelched in its kindness.
“Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting,” writes the Psalmist. (PSALM 126:5) Grieving human hearts get aligned with the grieving Holy Spirit when there is evil that brings pain and destruction. The heart flowing in the current of the Spirit of God prays the will of the Father and gains the promise of the Lord. The heart that cannot grieve can only pray the perfunctory prayer of ritual and gains only the promise of ritual, which is emptiness and futility.
Loving is risky business. It exposes the heart to the possibility of grief. But without it, human personality is a barren plain, unwatered by tears, a vast dryness in which nothing can grow.
TODAY’S FOCUS
Have you been wounded in relationships so that you are reluctant to risk your heart in caring for others? Ask the Father to restore your capacity for grief.
