HEARTACHE - Pray Network Forum - The Reimagine Network

Have you ever asked, “Why me?” when you faced pain or heartache? How can a church or a church leader minister to hurting people who are asking the question, “Why?”

Let me propose three crucial facets of ministry to people who might ask this question in the midst of hardship. We must deal with this issue by teaching, love, and encouragement.

Teaching is foundational to ministry in such situations. The question itself can be prompted by bad theology. Many of us living in sheltered and affluent societies have the notion that if you are a Christian, or possibly a good person, God will not allow terrible things to happen in your life. This is a false doctrine. You will not find it anywhere in Scripture. I believe it is legitimate to ask God that you not be led into the temptation that comes in trials. But in John 16:33 Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation.” Your people need to know that God has not promised them the American dream. The purpose of life is not comfort or pleasure.

However, it is important to note that you need to teach these things before your people come into heartache. The parents of a teenager killed in a car accident don't need your teaching in the crisis. They need God's love through you and through your church. Sometimes the less you say in a tragic situation the more God's love can be poured out through you and your presence with them. It is more important to pray with them than it is to teach them. They need your prayers and the prayers of the whole church family to endure the trial.

Even in trials you can encourage people to pray, to seek God, and to see that He is at work in the situation. And you can encourage them to seek God's glory in the midst of crises. There is an answer to the question, “Why.” It is actually the same answer to the question of why God blesses us. The purpose of heartache and blessing is to glorify His name. One of the ways God will be glorified through trials is by the character that He develops in you. You can encourage people to trust that God is working in their lives. James 2 calls us to rejoice when we fall into many kinds of trials, because we know that tribulation develops patient endurance. James goes on to say we must let endurance produce its perfect work in our lives. In Romans 5 we find the same promise. There Scripture tells us that endurance develops character. And character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint because the love of God is poured out on others through our lives. 2 Corinthians 1:3,4 speaks to this.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

So, let patience have her perfect work

Of character and hope in and through our lives.

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Matthew 5:4

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

I recently listened to a re-dramatization of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. Dame Agatha drew that marvelous story out of the heartache of mourning. The story was built around the extended grief caused by the kidnapping and murder of a child.

Mourning is indeed one of the most painful aspects of life in this fallen world. Every pastor has to deal with such heartbreak. Many years ago I was pastor in a dairy community near a large city in Texas. A family I did not know came knocking on my door one morning before daylight asking if I would pray for their baby. Unfortunately their baby, who turned out to be a four or five year old child, was already dead. The child had died that night in a careless accident. And, of course, the hearts of that whole family were broken.

My Father's heart was broken when my mother died after they had been married 60 years. I had no memory of seeing my father weep in my entire life, even at his own mother's funeral. But for over a year after my mother's death he hated to go anywhere because he could not seem to speak to anyone without tears streaming down his face.

The one time that Scripture tells us Jesus wept was at the graveside of a friend. Jesus knew He was preparing to raise Lazarus from the dead. But He also knew the depth of pain death inflicted upon those whom He loved.

You can read a great deal about means of comforting those who have lost loved ones. And I am sure many of them have some efficacy. But there is a depth of pain there that can never be completely alleviated in this life.

And yet we find this promise from Jesus, that those who mourn are blessed because they will indeed be comforted. The comfort Jesus is speaking of is greater than any comfort we can administer. And in fact this is a comfort we can only grasp by faith in this life. God alone can bring about complete comfort to those who mourn.

In the Return of the King, the final book in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Sam Gamgee wakes up after the ring has been destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. He is amazed that he is alive. And Gandalf, whom he was certain was dead, is standing before him. And he asks, “Is everything sad going to become untrue?” Though we must endure heartbreak in this life, we are promised all things lost will be renewed and every tear will be wiped away when we stand before our Lord in the end. And while it is hard for us to believe from this perspective, the goodness of that day will be good enough to turn even our heartache into comfort. Our deepest heartache will be replaced by Joy.