You Should Use These Spirit-Lifters to Help You Overcome Your Grief
Over the next week you are going to need special resources from God to help you cope. Get hold of a good Bible in a modern translation. Ask your minister for one if you haven’t a copy. Set a regular time each day and use one of these spirit-lifters to lift your spirit and give you the resources that God promises.
1. Death – the means of new life
READ 1 CORINTHIANS 15:35-57
We wonder about death, just what happens to our personality, our soul and our body. We wonder how our spirit can continue if our body be destroyed. How are they inter-related? Paul likens us to a seed. Our body is like a grain of wheat that is buried but from it springs new life. You have seen a dried and shrivelled daffodil bulb. No one suspects that from it can arise a magnificent bloom. When we die our body returns to the earth but from it blossoms new life. Death is not our end but our beginning.
PRAYER: Dear Lord, remind me of the blooms of spring. May I find that inner-life to lift my thoughts above the body to live in the spirit with You. By your power help me to live through this day. Amen.
2. Courage in the dark
READ PSALM 27
In a time like this fear dogs our footsteps. How can we possibly get through the day and do all the things that have to be done? In the dark moments of the night feelings of regret and guilt come. In a moment of weakness when we feel we cannot just go on or when we seem to be under attack from some quarter or another, old fears arise and loom large.
But God offers light, courage and strength. He enables us to overcome that fear and to live bravely. “Be strong of heart; take good courage”. God offers that strength and courage to us now.
PRAYER: Dear God, many times my heart sinks within and I am afraid of what today might bring. Let me live in Your presence and walk in Your light through today. Amen.
3. One who abides with me
READ JOSHUA 1:1-9
A grand old man had just died. Moses had gone. The children of Israel felt orphaned. Joshua had to carry on alone. How could he possibly cope on his own? We have pondered that question as we face our future tasks. God reassured Joshua “As I was with Moses so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you”. The same is true for you. God promises you His presence and strength. But He expects in return that you will live with courage and trust.
PRAYER: Dear God, I admit I feel like that – unable to cope alone. But You expect me to have courage and You promise me strength. Help me today to live in courage and strength. Amen.
4. Ahead lies peace
READ JOHN 14:1-7
Death seems so final. Nothing will ever be the same again. Yet when we believe, we have the promise that death can be a door to life in all of its fullness. Jesus promised to prepare a mansion or “resting place” for us and that he will show us how to travel the road through the valley of the shadow of death. He has been along that road and tells us that ahead lies love and laughter, joy and peace. He is willing to take us on that route to god and to where real life begins.
PRAYER: Dear Lord, only a thin line separates life from death, and many of my loved ones have gone ahead of me. Help me to live in faith and die in peace knowing that I am today completely in your care. Amen.
5. Nothing can separate us
READ ROMANS 8:18-39
There are two kinds of people. In old English they were called the quick and the dead. That is the major division. Some are alive and some are dead. Death seems the great chasm that divides us from each other. Yet through Christ, the conqueror of death, that chasm has been bridged. Paul asks what can separate us from the love of Christ? And he immediately replies to his own question by thinking of the one thing that troubles most people: “I am sure that neither death nor life … can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Not death. Nothing can separate us.
PRAYER: Dear Father in heaven, when I feel so alone and separated from everyone else, come to me with Your love. Assure me now that there is nothing in death or life that can separate us. Amen.
6. Always of good courage
READ 2 CORINTHIANS 5:1-10
The Scriptures stress that when our physical body returns to the elements of the soil from which God made us, (remember “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”? (Genesis 2:7)), our spirits are clothed in a new and perfect spiritual body. On earth we sigh with anxiety but we must live with courage. The fact is that either in heaven or on earth we belong to God and are in His care. So today live with good courage.
PRAYER: Lord god, my sighs and anxious moments are still with me. Help me to live courageously today knowing that whatever happens I am in Your care. Amen.
7. The power of His resurrection
READ PHILIPPIANS 3:7-14
Most of us somehow feel that the resurrection of Christ affected only Him. In fact your life and that of your loved one and your whole future is bound up in His resurrection. Paul’s great desire was to know Him and the power of His resurrection so that through His resurrection we too might live triumphant over death. That power of His resurrection is available to us. Live in that confidence. Because He overcame death and now lives eternally, you shall live also.
PRAYER: Lord God, many people have come from the same despair that I have known to live with confidence. May I be aware of the power of His resurrection so that I too may live.Amen.