BLESSED MOURNING

By Dane Skelton
Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Doesn’t that sound strange?

In other words, Happy are the Unhappy. This is not the mourning that comes with the loss of a loved one. It is the mourning that comes with the loss of innocence, righteousness, self –respect. It is the sorrow of repentance.

Author and Pastor John Stott writes: “The Christian life, according to Jesus, is not all joy and laughter. Some Christians seem to imagine that, especially if they are filled with the Spirit, they must wear a perpetual grin on their face and be continuously boisterous and bubbly. How unbiblical can we become? The truth is that there are such things as Christian tears, and too few of us ever weep them.”

Mourning is something we do when we suffer a great loss. It’s natural and right. When a loved one dies, we mourn. When we lose a job we mourn. When we lose our dreams, we mourn.

God has so wired the soul that we need to mourn when we have lost something. When we sin, we lose something. We lose touch with God. We lose the dignity and nobility that comes from being made in His image. We need to grieve over those things because they hurt us and grieve God. Until that happens, something will be left undone in our souls. Until we have mourned the losses that come from sin they are still with us.

If your soul is disturbed within you and you do not know why, ask the Lord to expose you to the tragedy of sin – what you have lost and what he has lost in you. And do not be afraid to grieve. For when you do, God himself will comfort you.