Life Song: How To Be Sad To The Glory of God
Life Song
How To Be Sad To the Glory of God
Psalm 44
Some introductory thoughts on sadness...
Sadness teaches us to sing in the minor key
Sadness enlarges my perspective of God and myself
Sadness rescues us from weightless “spirituality”
Sadness deepens my faith
Sadness moves me beyond my anger
“We have traded in the language of lament for something far less. Namely, the language of grief management or psychology. When we trade biblical vocabulary for the vocabulary of the culture we are increasingly subject to losing our ability to hear this language.” -Keith Anderson
1. Learn to live in the trajectory not just the moment
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” -Martin Luther King
2. Trust God’s nature not just his activity
3. Don’t look for the lesson, listen for the invitation
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” -John 5:39-40
4. Cultivate the habit of speaking honestly with God
5. Don’t think of this as historical but personal
“What then shall we say these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died-more than that, who was raised- who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:31–39
How To Be Sad To the Glory of God
Psalm 44
Some introductory thoughts on sadness...
Sadness teaches us to sing in the minor key
Sadness enlarges my perspective of God and myself
Sadness rescues us from weightless “spirituality”
Sadness deepens my faith
Sadness moves me beyond my anger
“We have traded in the language of lament for something far less. Namely, the language of grief management or psychology. When we trade biblical vocabulary for the vocabulary of the culture we are increasingly subject to losing our ability to hear this language.” -Keith Anderson
1. Learn to live in the trajectory not just the moment
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” -Martin Luther King
2. Trust God’s nature not just his activity
3. Don’t look for the lesson, listen for the invitation
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” -John 5:39-40
4. Cultivate the habit of speaking honestly with God
5. Don’t think of this as historical but personal
“What then shall we say these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died-more than that, who was raised- who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:31–39