Dr Paul Allen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As Christians, we grieve. Oh, do we grieve. Being a Christian does not mean that our sorrows go away or are minimised, or that we pretend that the many sorrows of this life are no big deal. In fact, we Christians actually grieve more. God has taken out our old, dead hearts and put new hearts in us. In Christ, the insensitivities and imbalances of our old selves are being renewed day by day into the likeness of Jesus (Col. 3:10). With the help and healing of the Holy Spirit, we feel more, not less. More than joy alone, we feel, at new depths, the seemingly negative emotions of anger, fear, shame, guilt, and sorrow. With sin still indwelling us, we often err in the timing, focus, and intensity of our feelings. But in Christ, we really can, and really do, grow to feel holy anger, holy fear, holy shame, holy sorrow—a holy grief that is wholly different from worldly despair. All joy, no grief? In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, the Apostle Paul writes with the longing that Christians “not grieve as o...