THE Alpha of Grief

UV 3045/10000 The Alpha of Grief
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
Isaiah 53 v 4

Jesus bore our agony so that we would experience the ecstasy of salvation. It is written that He is well acquainted with our grief for He Himself suffered much grief. He empathises with our pain and sorrow and lifts us out of it so that all mankind who saw Him with the eyes of faith are delivered from all sorrow even as those Israelites who were bitten by poisonous snakes in the desert of Sinai were saved from the venom when they looked up to the bronzen serpent that was lifted up on a pole- a metaphor for the eventual crucifixion of Jesus. God allowed His beloved Son to be afflicted so that the penalty for sin would be paid and we would obtain the priceless peace of eternal life.

In our lives, too we are allowed sometimes to be afflicted so that we conform to the image of the Son, so that we are refined and purified, so that we avail the grace and strength from the Lord to endure such grief. At such times, Jesus as Risen Saviour and Lord invites us closer to Him, to lay all our grief and sorrowful burden at His feet. Job was afflicted severely in order to test his faith. He emerged from this ordeal by fire refined and even more faithful and blessed in the latter part of his life. We should not therefore neither be weighed down by sorrow or grief nor resent it. Scripture says that He does not willingly afflict us but that sometimes it is a necessity to teach us something or to perfect us. The Lord reluctantly allows grief when it is inevitable and necessary for the perfection of our faith.

Affliction and grief are like a furnace burning deep within our inner being. It drives home the lessons that we would never learn otherwise. Like gold and silver are purified and refined in a furnace over and over again, each time we suffer a particular grief, we are being refined. It is painful while we are enduring such suffering but once we emerge from the furnace of afflictions with our faith as pure as gold, we are greatly blessed and we are able to rejoice and even thank the Lord for the suffering and for the strength He gave us to endure it. Jesus was put to the ultimate test no human can endure but we are tested only to the limits of what we can endure.