Friday's Faith - What If Jesus Had Gone to a Therapist?

Friday's Faith

What if Jesus Had Gone to a Therapist?

or

The Everlasting Longing

In a couple of our blog posts this week, we alluded to the fact that the very foundation of our grief is longing. The foundation of God's love for us is a longing to be with us...

Jesus cried out before He went to the cross as He looked out over the city of Jerusalem and was longing for God's people, the Jews to come to Him,

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you,

HOW OFTEN I HAVE LONGED TO GATHER YOUR CHILDREN TOGETHER, AS A HEN GATHERS HER CHICKS UNDER HER WINGS, BUT YOU WERE NOT WILLING.

~Matthew 23:37

Jesus LONGED for them...

If Jesus had gone to a therapist, would the therapist have said,

We need you to 'get over' this grief and longing so that you can 'move on'?

God longs for us. His desire and longing for us was so strong, He allowed the sacrifice of His own Son.

GOD IS GOD! HE COULD HAVE JUST "GOTTEN OVER IT." He chose NOT TO. He chose to remain vulnerable so that He could have complete love for us, and we could freely respond to His love freely given. And ultimately, with His help, and with His great sacrifice of His Son to pay the price for our sins, we could freely respond to that love and ultimately completely return such a love back to Him.

GOD DOESN'T GET OVER HIS LONGING FOR US, HIS CHILDREN. SO WHY SHOULD I "GET OVER" THE LONGING FOR MY CHILD?

We are created in God's image. Our emotions of love are GOD-given, not there for some shrink to think he should remove for us to be "stable." (Are you, oh wise therapist, saying then that the Living God, who created the whole universe mind you--is UNSTABLE?) GOD longs for us because He loves us. Love often involves suffering --that's the price you pay to love someone.

Perhaps the world's longing is for something different. Happiness at all costs? Don't love your child so much that it makes me uncomfortable, so I'll help you to just "get over" them. Perhaps the world's longing is to "be God," not to "be with God." This was the sinful temptation Satan held out to Adam and Eve. He distorted God's truth, tempting them--it's better to be God that to be with God. God is all about LOVE and LONGING to be with us. And we as parents are all about LOVE and LONGING to be with our children.

Jesus knew LOVE was going to demand suffering. He didn't relish the idea of suffering. In fact, He asked God, if there is ANY other way, please take this cup from Me...nevertheless not My will, but Thine be done. But because His Love for us did include the need for His own suffering, He accepted the devastating "cup" of death even though it meant He would be treated as a heinous criminal with the tormenting and degrading death...death on a cross...

(Jesus said,)

"Now My heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father save Me from this hour?' No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name."

~John 12:27-28

Indeed Jesus warned us, we are going to have to die to ourselves many times as His followers out of our love for Him, and out of our love for the people He has put in our lives:

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves Me must follow Me; and where I am My servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves Me.

~John 12:24-26

Though we do NOT hear the message of "Oh no, you should not be suffering!" from Jesus! He just warned us we will indeed suffer if we follow in His footsteps of love. Suffering is all a part of it.

But unfortunately we seem to hear as much from the "Christian world" as we do from the "world" and the "shrink world,"

"Get on!" "Get over it!" (as if something is wrong with us if we don't!)

Guess what? We just love our children. And hurting when we lose them is all a part of it.

When you think about it, Death of your child is what's wrong - THAT is the disorder, or the disease in this world. Our missing our child is what's RIGHT. It just comes with the territory of love! It is the price to be paid for love.

There is nothing wrong with grief and missing your child!

What IS wrong was your child being killed or dying from an illness. This death is the diseased part of this fallen world that GOD DID NOT DESIGN TO BE HERE. GOD SAYS CLEARLY -

The whole creation LONGS to be restored--which God will do some day. Until that day--we will LONG for it to be restored. Restored to its original-creation-beauty, BEFORE sin and death ever entered it.

We will LONG for our baby, our child, to be with us, AND THAT'S OKAY.

GOD Himself longs for us to be restored with Him. It is the very reason Jesus died --

I go...to prepare a place for you THAT YOU MAY BE WHERE I AM ...I will come back for you.

~(paraphrased from John 14:2-3)

--Jesus did NOT say...But don't worry. I'm going to "GET OVER" My longing for you.

In my opinion, there will be an Unceasing Longing in our hearts for our deceased children until our face-to-face-communion will be restored. I carry around that longing inside me. I cannot guarantee that it won't make others around me uncomfortable. But that does not give you the right nor the permission to try to TAKE that longing away from me.