Monday, June 26, 2017

When Sorrows Come

By Francis O. Patterson
April 27 or 28, 2012

I learned of the home-going of Brother Bobby Lookabill as I was working on getting this bulletin ready for Sunday. My mind soon thereafter went back to others in our church that have had loved ones go home to be with the Lord in recent months and years. As I was thinking about these things, I was reminded that through the death of a loved one and friend God is able to teach us things that He could not teach us otherwise and in other circumstances. So, I encourage you to wait on the Lord and allow Him to show you some things, even though at the moment it might be difficult for you. For instance:

God wants you to know that He still loves you:
We sometimes wonder how can God love us and allow the things to come into our lives that he does.
1. The Bible responds by telling us that it is God’s very nature to be loving:
God is love (1 John 4:8)
His love for us doesn’t change though the circumstances may.
2. The problem isn’t that God doesn’t love us but that our perspective is limited:
God is infinite, we are finite.
God sees the whole, we see only the part.
God’s ways aren’t our ways. Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
God in His wisdom allows sorrow to come into our lives and we must remember that His plan is best.
3. It is to this loving God that we can turn and know that He judges rightly and correctly:
Gen. 18:25 asks, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The Bible answers that God the Creator “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11).
We can turn to God at this time and know he is fair, just, impartial and loving. (Ps. 98:9)
4. Yes, in this time of sorrow it may seem as if God’s love is not to be found:
But His word reminds us that He does love you.
But more than this He sympathizes with you. Heb. 2:17 says, “Wherefore in all things it behooved him (Christ) to be made like unto His brethren, that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest…”
The Lord Jesus came to earth from heaven to become a man.
He knows what it means to sorrow, to grieve.
He sympathizes with you in your grief.
So, when sorrow comes, God wants you to know He still loves you.
He is loving.
He is just, and fair in judgment.
He is sympathetic in our sorrow.

FOP

Note: Transcribed by Wes Patterson, son of FOP. Bobby J. Lookabill passed away on Friday, April 27, 2012, and was a member of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Welcome, NC. This article was previously published in the Bulletin of Lighthouse Baptist Church on April 29, 2012, of which Frank Patterson was the editor. Frank Patterson, in turn, went home to be with the Lord on July 31, 2015. His own words were truly a comfort to us, his family. CWP
 

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