How the Mighty have Fallen (Part 3)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Day 3: How to Grieve
David taught Judah how to grieve for Saul by means of a lament. I find that absolutely fascinating. You might think if anything is a personal matter it would be how you grieve or don’t grieve when someone dies. But that is not the case. There was an appropriate way to respond to the death of Saul emotionally, and David’s very first national act after the death of Saul was to teach the people of God the right way to grieve.
David really was a shepherd for God’s people. The very first thing he does when Saul dies is not a move to secure the throne, or some political maneuver, or even to move back to Israel. The first recorded thing that David does on the national stage is teaching. That tells us something of the heart of David for the people.
It is also an act that shows a certain amount of influence. He is not king – he does not even live in Israel, and yet his influence in the south is strong enough where he can actually decree that something be taught throughout Judah.
So this lament is a sort of authorized version of sorrow over Saul. So let’s sit with the people of Judah and learn what we can about godly grieving. David teaches us at least three things about responding to tragedy.
A lament is when the intensity of the emotions and the discipline of the mind join forces to produce a structured sorrow. We have a need for that because we are rational beings.
When you suffer some great loss – a loss great enough to generate significant distress in your heart- a death, a broken relationship, a major financial or career setback, a health problem; after the initial response of grief why not take the time to compose a reasoned, thoughtful, articulated lament? If you did that you could carefully select the words and thoughts of your sorrow, making sure they reflect biblical principles and consider the loss from a spiritual point of view, and then you can have that to present to God as worship and to read over and over when your soul is out of words and you need to express grief.
One thing that will do is guard you from veering into error or heresy in your grief. When we just let our emotions run it is just about guaranteed that at some point our thoughts will swerve outside the bounds of truth and push us into thinking about the loss in worldly ways. And having a kind of authorized sorrow in the form of a lament will guard you from that.
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