SURRENDERING TO OUR LIMITS - DEALING WITH GRIEF & LOSS

THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY - LESSON 13:  Surrendering to our limits

Tonight we are going to dig into the concept of surrender… surrendering to our limits and through that… we must process grief and loss.  Limits are behind all loss.  God has placed enormous limits around even the most gifted of us.  Why? – to keep us grounded and humble.  In fact, the very meaning of the word humility comes from the Latin word humus which means ‘of the earth’.  

Our world interprets loss as alien invasions that interrupt our normal lives.  We numb ourselves to them through denial, blaming, rationalizations, addictions, and avoidance.  We search for spiritual shortcuts around our wounds.  We demand others to take away our pain.  We all face many deaths in our lives.  The choice we have is whether these deaths/ losses will be terminal (crushing our spirit and life) or.. open us up to new possibilities and depths of transformation in Christ.  In fact, if this topic stirs you and you realize you need further assistance than this class permits tonight, please plan to attend Healing from Losses – our Feb 12^th ‘Change Your Life’ Saturday seminar.

To be forthright, we all need to understand that none one of us will escape having to deal with grief and loss.  For this reason, we need to learn how to deal with it the right way – in a healthy way.  As we consider God’s word and a possible ‘life example’ the story of Job stands out as one who dealt with extreme losses.   The story of Job is the story of us all.  Job lost everything in one day – family, wealth and even his health (Job 1:13-2:8), most of us experience our losses more slowly, over the span of a lifetime…

We lose our youthfulness; our dreams, our routines & stability.  We lose our influence and our power decreases.  Our parents age and we become their caretakers.  Most of us in one or more moments of our lives, experience catastrophic loss – unexpected death in the family through accident, a suicide.  Our spouse has an affair, we find ourselves single after a messy divorce, we are diagnosed with cancer, we lose our place of employment after 20 years, a loyal friend betrays us and on it goes….    We grieve the many things we can’t do --our limits.  We experience greater or lesser losses from our families growing up.  Some of us feel like we lost a leg in a war because of our family of origin wounds and we walk with a limp it seems.  

Another loss…..maybe we lose our wrong ideas of God and the church (hmmm.. that could be good).. Depending on how much we invested in those beliefs, and now we realize they were wrong or foolishness, will provoke feelings of betrayal and loss… wasted time…loss..  

Back to Job – Job was the Bill Gates of his day.  His wealth was staggering.  The Bible says he had 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 oxen, 500 donkeys as well as a very large staff.  Job 1:3 says ‘he was the greatest man among all the people of the East’.  He was also very godly – faithful and obedient.  Job 1:1b ‘He feared God and shunned evil’. If he was alive today, we would say he was one of the most well-known, respected Christian leaders of the day – maybe like Billy Graham except he has great wealth unlike Billy Graham.

As we know…everything that could possibly come against Job did.  Enemies invaded. Lightening stuck. A tornado unleashed its fury.  By the end of the day, the richest man alive at the time was reduced to poverty and his ten children had been killed in a natural disaster.  What will really blow your mind is that Job never blamed God, he did not sin – He responded beautifully: He worshiped. 

That’s not the end… after all this, his health was hit – can you imagine having painful boils all over your body – from the sole of your feet to the top of your head?  Job’s suffering was undeserved. He was innocent. There was no connection between sin and his suffering. This seems unfair doesn’t it? How might you have responded if you were Job?  How would you grieve if you were Job?  Before we go into the details of how Job dealt with loss, I’ve asked Mike to come and share his story – how he has dealt with grief and loss over the years.

(Mike’s Story - LISTEN TO AUDIO)

Let’s discuss the value of grieving and how to do it. First of all, we need to understand that grieving differs from family to family, from culture to culture.  Both play a role in how we learn to grieve.  We will even find some seeming extremes in some.  There are those that turn the funeral into a celebration and others that time stands still for a very long period of time – like in Italy or Greece where women wear black for the rest of their lives after a husband’s death.

In our American culture, addiction has become the most common way to deal with pain and grief.  We watch tv incessantly. We keep busy, running from one activity to another. We work 70 hrs a week, indulge in pornography, overeat, drink, take pills.  Some of us even demand that a person or ‘something’ take our pain away or relieve us of our loneliness – a spouse, our children, an achievement, a career or even a church.  

We have been learning throughout this class that we must turn toward our pain and stop running from it.  That is counter-intuitive…but, we must come to realize and face the fact that the heart of Christianity is: the way to life is through death – the pathway to resurrection is crucifixion.  The requirement for growing up, becoming spiritually healthy and mature is to drop our defense mechanisms and honestly feel and look at what is true..  Following are a few of our defense mechanisms that block our growth and healing:

1.   Denial (or selective forgetting) – refuse to face reality externally and/or internally. Looks like comments such as: “I feel just fine. It didn’t bother me a bit. I’m not worried in the least’.

2.   Minimizing – We admit something is wrong but not to the degree of seriousness that is really is.  Looks like: “my son is ok with God, he’s just drinking once in awhile’ but in reality he is drinking heavily and rarely coming home at night.

3.   Blaming Others – We deny responsibility for our behavior. “The reason my sister is sick is because the doctors messed up her medications” – reality is, it’s her lifestyle and choices.  So.. not only do we blame others for our problems but we even blame others for others problems rather than face reality

4.   Blaming Yourself – We inwardly take on fault when we should not.  “It’s my fault Mom doesn’t take care of me and drinks all the time. It’s because I’m not worth it.”  This has more to do with lies we believe

5.   Rationalizing – Offer excuses, alibis, justifications that provide an inaccurate explanation of what is going on. i.e., ‘didn’t you know that Joe has a genetic predisposition to anger because of his family of origin? That’s why the anger management group didn’t help him’.

6.   Intellectualizing – We give analysis, theories and generalities to avoid personal awareness and difficult feelings: ‘my situation is not that bad compared to how others are suffering in the world.  What do I have to cry about?’  This often happens in a support group setting.  I’m ok.. everyone else here had a lot more problems than I do.. so ..maybe I don’t need this.

7.   Distracting – We change the subject or engage in humor to avoid threatening topics.  ‘Why are you always so focused on the negative?  Remember what a great time we had last Christmas?’

8.   Becoming Hostile – We get angry or irritable when a topic comes up we don’t want to deal with. “Don’t talk about dad, he’s dead.  It’s not going to bring him back.”

So… if we stop using all these avoidance tactics and we are faced with grief in loss, what do we do?  Back to Job..In the book of Job we find God’s path to new beginnings and moving through grief.  There are five different phases we go through:

1.   Pay Attention – when Job was approached with any questions about his feelings or state, he was honest – he screamed out in pain, holding nothing back. Job 3:3-4, 6:2-4  “³ “May the day of my birth perish,
   and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’
⁴ That day—may it turn to darkness;
   may God above not care about it;
   may no light shine on it.                             

² “If only my anguish could be weighed
   and all my misery be placed on the scales!
³ It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas—
   no wonder my words have been impetuous.
⁴ The arrows of the Almighty are in me,
   my spirit drinks in their poison;
   God’s terrors are marshaled against me.  

Job did not avoid the horror of his situation. He confronted it directly. Just like we see from the psalmists – often we are uncomfortable with that kind of bluntness but they are in the Bible for a reason; A model for us.  There is a lot of anger, frustration, sadness as well as joy expressed.  We must give ourselves permission to let it out and stop stuffing.  It’s all part of the process of dealing with grief and loss.  As we discussed before, if we do not deal with these emotions properly, we will leak.. we can only push them down for so long.  

Job’s misery lasted for several months or it may have been years, we are not certain.  What we do know is that he paid attention to both God and himself, choosing to enter the confusion in his soul and pressing through his wall of pain and suffering.

2.   Wait in the Confusing In-Between – Job waited for a long time when the people closest to him quit.  They did not have a big enough God or theology to walk through phase two of grieving – waiting in the confusing in-between.  Job’s 3 religious friends believed that Job was somehow reaping what he had sown.  They were convinced that his suffering was due to some sin.  His 3 friends represent ‘classic religion’ and ‘legalism’.  In our day, it might sound like this: “The reason you’re not healed is you don’t pray enough, fast enough, read the Bible enough, have enough faith.  You are suffering more than most because you have sinned more”. 

The problem with Job and many of us is these things are simply not true.  Job was an innocent sufferer just as we are at times. During the confusing in-between, we must fight the comments of our internal and external critics.  And.. we must resist quick solutions and explanations. 

3.   Embrace the Gift of Limits – As we consider this point, I wonder as many of you may… if the greatest loss we grieve is our own limits.  Our limitations will drive us to humility before God and others like nothings else.  Let’s consider our limits:

-        Our body – hello! We’re all dying..one day we will return to dust.  We will all finish our lives with unfinished goals and dreams.  What other limitations do we have with our body?  Hmmm.. why is plastic surgery so popular and people spend millions of dollars a year to make themselves look different?  Not accepting limitations perhaps?

-        Our family of origin – our family, ethnicity, culture, all have given us the gift of limits. Did you have 1 parent or 2?, adopted? All of us enter into adulthood with limits due to our families

-        Marital status – Marriage and singleness are limits given by God.  If we have children, how many? Or none.. all are limits

-        Intellectual capacity – None of us are brilliant in everything – we have intellectual limitations

-        Talents & gifts – Jesus has them all… We may have 10, someone else has 3.. limits!

-        Material wealth – Our level of prosperity limits us.  Even if we are a millionaire, we are still limited.

-        Raw material – We are all ‘unique’ – you have a certain personality, temperament, high feeler, low feeler, introvert, extrovert – all of which are gifts and limitations

-        Time – we only have one life to live. We can’t do it all. Time is always running out… it is limited.

-        Work & relationship realities – Our work remains thorns & thistles (Genesis 3:18).  It is often hard and we never totally finish anything. There is always grief in never having complete fulfillment.  Therefore, we must accept that we may never have the ‘perfect’ job or relationship we desire.  We grieve the limitation and accept in our relationships what the person is able to give.

-        Spiritual understanding – Deuteronomy 29:19 says “The secret things belong to the Lord our God”. God has revealed himself to us in many ways, however, so much of who He is, is incomprehensible/ impossible to understand.

Acceptance Defined:  the act of taking or receiving something offered.

2. favorable reception; approval; favor.

3. the act of assenting or believing

4. the fact or state of being accepted or acceptable. 

John the Baptist models wonderfully what it means to embrace our limits.  People began following Jesus rather than him when he came on the scene.  John’s response was John 3:27  ²⁷ To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. and John 3:30 ³⁰ He must become greater; I must become less.”^[a]

Understanding and embracing our limits will also help us realize we are not the center of the universe.  A baby screams and cries for its needs to be met – they are grandiose, arrogant and childish.  Unfortunately, we can all stay there and not grow up and mature.  The universe does not exist to meet our every need.  Our egos can be pretty inflated and coming to a place of seeing and knowing our limits and the limits of others can help in breaking our ego.  Getting off our thrones and joining the rest of humanity is a must for growing up. Of course.. there will be a battle.. there is a part of us that hates limits. We won’t accept them. This is why grieving a loss is biblical and necessary – it humbles us like nothing else.  Accept your limits – limits at home, the workplace, your community, your church and within yourself.

4.   Climb the Ladder of Humility- Job emerged from his suffering transformed. He was a broken and changed man. After his great loss and long waiting on the Lord, God spoke to Job referring to him several times as ‘my servant’ which suggests a new level of intimacy and closeness with Job (see Job 42). One of the signs of humility in Job was his reaction to his 3 friends.  He chose to pray and bless them rather than seek revenge (Job 4).  He climbed the ladder of humility.

5. Let the Old Birth the New….in His time – As Job followed the difficult path of allowing his losses to enlarge his soul for God, God blessed him supernaturally… Now we get to the good part..  Not only was he spiritually transformed, but Job 42:10-17 tells us that “¹⁰ After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. ¹¹ All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver^[a] and a gold ring.
 ¹² The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. ¹³ And he also had seven sons and three daughters. ¹⁴ The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. ¹⁵ Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
 ¹⁶ After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. ¹⁷ And so Job died, an old man and full of year

I wonder what it would have ended like had Job not accepted his limitations, what the end would have been had he not made the decision to press through the grief and loss?

The story of Job is to encourage us to trust God with the many mini-deaths that we experience in our lives.  Suffering and death bring resurrection and transformation. When we grieve God’s way, we are changed forever.  We will have an intimate prayer life with God and a connection that runs deeper than we have ever known and a life that can be defined as ‘abundant’ and ‘fulfilling’ – a life blessed by God.

THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY-LESSON 13

GROUP WORK – Surrendering to our limits

1.        What has traditionally been the way you have dealt with your grief and limitations?

2.        What are some of the defense mechanisms you have used?

3.         Going through the phases of grief & loss.  How are you doing with:

1) Paying Attention/ Self-Awareness? 2) Waiting in the Confusing In-Between? 3) Embracing the Gift of Limits? 4) Climbing the Ladder of Humility?  5) Letting the Old Birth the New….in His time