Will I mourn for the rest of my life?

July 22, 2013: Please “Share” this new Blog Post for Precious Prodigal: http://wp.me/p1D8dQ-bK

Gen 37:35 “…For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.”

It’s heartbreaking to have a prodigal in your life, isn’t it? It’s not easy to watch people you love making wrong choices and doing things you know can’t work out well for them. Not only do they wreak destruction in their own lives, but they often also bring that pain and destruction home to us. If you’re like most of us who love a prodigal, you can probably identify with King David, who “made his bed to swim and watered his couch with tears.” (Ps 6:6)

Jacob wasn’t grieving a prodigal, but he was certainly grieving a loss. And that loss was as real to him as the losses and heartbreak we suffer when we love a prodigal. When people deal with heartbreak day after day like Jacob did, they may start to think it’s always going to be that way. That’s where Jacob was, and that is the second wrong conclusion he came to. He thought and even said he would go to his grave mourning his precious son. I’m not saying his loss wasn’t real to him, and I’m not saying our losses are not real to us. I’m right there with you. The loss is real, and the pain is real and constant. But it can’t be the only thing in our lives.

Of course, we know the end of the story, and Jacob didn’t. However, I wonder what he thought when he put his arms around the son he thought he had lost forever. Besides being filled with joy, don’t you think he might have wondered why he had made himself miserable for all those years in between? What a waste of more than 20 years! While it was his sons who caused Jacob to lose Joseph, only Jacob was responsible for letting that loss consume him. He concluded that if he could not find joy in one specific thing, there could be no joy at all. And he was wrong.

Jesus didn’t just come so we could have life. Of course, that’s part of it. But He also came so we could have that life “more abundantly.” (John 10:10) Having joy…abundant joy…is God’s plan for you and for me. It is our “portion under the sun.” (Eccl 9:9) We can’t let it depend on whether or not our prodigal comes home. If the entire focus of our attention is on what we’ve lost, we will be blind to the wonderful things that remain. And there are many things that remain if we just look for them.

Poor, foolish Jacob…he thought his son was dead, and he thought he would go to his own grave still mourning that son. And because of those two faulty conclusions, he lost more than 20 years of enjoying the blessings of God in his life. While he didn’t know the end of the story, he did know the God who was writing the story. Was he unaware of the many ways God continued to bless him? Even more, didn’t he still have access to his God, who had this thing under control all along? He had that and more, just as we do. He had a choice, and he could have chosen joy. We also have a choice. For me, for today, I choose joy.

Challenge for Today: Can you, just for today, allow yourself to see the many ways God has blessed you?